


Stones

by idoltina



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Camelot, F/M, Implied Captain Hook | Killian Jones/Emma Swan, Library Sex, Marriage Proposal, Study Sex, garden sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-01
Updated: 2017-07-01
Packaged: 2018-11-21 18:37:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 34,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11363262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idoltina/pseuds/idoltina
Summary: Canon divergent post 05.02, Camelot timeline. Some alterations from 04.19 forward, including: Zelena puts Robin under a sleeping curse instead of getting pregnant and does not accompany the heroes to Camelot; the Merry Men, however, do tag along.Several weeks into their stay in Camelot, Robin finally manages to persuade Regina into taking a much needed break after a long day holed up in Merlin’s study. Their plans for a pleasant afternoon in Guinevere's rose garden, however, soon turn into much, much more. Or, Robin and Regina fuss, flirt, fuck, feast, and foster in Camelot.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For [the-notsoevil-queen](https://www.fanfiction.net/u/7478712/the-notsoevil-queeen) and her precious little [doodle](http://the-notsoevil-queen.tumblr.com/post/158057724949/okay-wait-no-i-lied-can-i-cheat-and-do-oq).
> 
>  **Warnings:** adult language, mild discussions of potential disordered eating, references to previous canonical assault and attempted murder, sexual situations

Summer in Camelot is surprisingly warm, except for when it’s not. The days aren’t scorching, by any means, but there’s a weight to the humidity in the air, a simmer to the warmth as the sun’s rays beat down. Over the last several weeks, Regina’s found it difficult to find a comfortable place to conduct her research. Oh, Merlin’s study is the most apt setting, to be sure, but the tower-top room didn’t exactly boast quality insulation. She began each morning there surrounded by books and parchment and tried, as often as she could manage without anxiety crawling under her skin, to have lunch with the others in the dining hall. On the days her stomach would twist into knots, she’d take her lunch in the study instead, picking at her plate idly over the course of the afternoon.

Afternoons were the worst, though, just after high noon; the sun’s rays were merciless in those hours, and the refuge she’d found within stone walls became a stifling sweatbox, wet heat lodging in her throat. And while Regina could easily use magic to remedy at least parts of this problem, she’s often used it as an excuse to get outside for a little while — away from prying eyes and thinly concealed whispers and that stupid fucking tree that _mocks_ her apparently feeble and futile attempts at working toward a resolution. Toward freeing it — _him_ from his own tower of sorts.

(Toward freeing Emma from the consumption she should have never had to take.)

The rose garden was often the place she found herself in the early afternoon, shielded from the sun by shadows and seeking refuge against the smooth, cold stone benches scattered throughout. She was alone there about as often as she was not, and on the days she was graced with company, she welcomed the distractions of her family. Snow retreated to the garden too, on some occasions, Neal tucked gently into her arms, and her idle chatter and gossip has been… not entirely unbearable, though Regina would never admit to it out loud. The boys have rushed through a number of times, boisterous even in the thick of heat, but their easy joy is always infectious, and more often than not, she’s allowed them to pull her into their games — to dodging and lifting and laughing out loud, clear and high and bright as the sun from which they’ve tried to hide.

(On the days when she finds herself entirely alone, Regina’s eyes slip shut and her fingers curl against stone, and all too quickly she remembers the way darkness had felt all around her, remembers drowning and being unable to die.

Those days, her excursions into the garden never last all that long.)

In the beginning, Regina had been honest to god _baffled_ by the idea of wearing something as heavy as _velvet_ around here, particularly during the summer. True, her royal wardrobe had been full of a plethora of potentially impractical outfits, but she knew what to do with them, at least, when and how to wear them to her best advantage. And, well, she’d grown accustomed to living with some level of discomfort over the years, so a little extra fabric or a corset that was a touch too tight or leather that stuck to her skin was never really much of a bother. But the garb of Camelot has been surprisingly… comfortable, all things considered. It’s heavy, certainly, and a touch overwarm under the sun or near an open flame, but it’s also… soft, soothing and cozy in a way she wasn’t quite expecting. It’s an extra layer of comfort in a stiff stone chair in the study, a flowing lightness in the gardens in the midst of an afternoon breeze.

Nights, though. Nights are when the fabric choices make the most sense to Regina, because for all that Camelot’s summers can be almost sickly warm during the day, its nights are entirely unpredictable. They haven’t been here a full month yet and already they’ve seen their fair share of sharp weather turns after the sun sets. There are nights where the warmth of the day sticks around, of course, lingers in the air and settles over the grass in invitation. But for each warm night there has been a summer rain to match, downpours torrential and rushing almost melodically through the air, a wash from sky to ground. And in the spaces between warm and wet, wind finds its ways through the trees, between the cracks in stone and mortar and into the crevices of each tower and turret.

Those nights find an extra blanket tucked around each of her sons and her curled close into Robin’s warmth, cocooned away from the rest of the world.

(Those nights, she longs for dawn to disappear — to drown in desire and forget, just for a little while longer, that she needs daylight to battle darkness from the outside in.)

Today, she wakes in a cold sweat well before the dawn breaks, only just managing to catch the gasp that threatens to spill from her lips as she starts, jolts awake. Her breath comes quick, shallow and sharp through her nose while she purses her lips together, eyes blinking rapidly as she tries to adjust to the low light of the candle flickering in the corner of their room. They’ve been happening more frequently again, the nightmares, haven’t been quite this bad since before Neverland, even, but where they’d stick, wedge in her mind with sharp clarity before they only leave impressions now — distant and fleeting and fuzzy around the edges, a black void of only ache left behind.

(They’d been worse, right after they’d arrived in Camelot, even when she couldn’t recall details beyond emotion: for an entire week she’d woken up barely stifling screaming, startling Robin awake and suppressing sobs against his shirt while he’d tried his best to soothe her. Only come morning would she notice the blistered burn marks marring his skin and be reminded that it is not just her sleep that is more troubled, now.

Those nights, the void had been stained red.)

Still, all things considered, tonight’s — or this morning’s, depending on how she looks at it — little episode pales in comparison to any that have come before it, and she’s almost proud of the speed with which she can manage to get her heart to come down to rest. She glances up and over at Robin to find him still asleep, chest rising and falling with rhythmic ease, and something in her settles. He’s here, he’s _fine_ , whole and unharmed and breathing beneath her, and the last vestiges of the panic that lingers upon waking finally recedes back into the recesses of her mind.

In its wake, there is nothing left to fill the void save for the impression the dream had left behind, and like a second skin, disappointment settles over her shoulders.

Another day has passed, and all Regina has done is fail.

She wrinkles her brow at that, frustrated that she can’t even find solace from it in sleep, but it hardly matters now anyway. She won’t be able to find rest anymore, not tonight — today. So it’s with sagging shoulders and melancholy in the back of her throat that she arches up and in to graze a soft kiss against Robin’s jaw, careful not to disrupt his sleep. Quietly, carefully, she slides out of bed, toes wiggling against cold stone as she reaches for the satin robe draped over the back of the nearby armchair.

Shivering, she tightens the sash of the robe around her waist and crosses the room to the small window opening on the other side, arms finding purchase against the sill as she leans against it and shifts her gaze to the sky. The moon has long since set but it’s still relatively dark; there are still stars scattered across the canvas, lights slowly blinking out one at a time. If she had to hazard a guess based on rudimentary observation alone (she is not Killian, or Robin — she never developed an aptitude for this sort of thing even with all of her magical study), she’d bet it’s probably somewhere in the four o'clock hour. It’ll be hours yet before anyone in her party or their hosts rises with the sun — except for Neal, perhaps, and then subsequently probably Snow, in that case — and the prospect of being alone for a while is equal parts enticing and worrisome.

She does not do well on her own, here.

But solitude also provides very few distractions, which means she has a better chance of focusing properly and delving into more research — maybe even conduct an experiment or two. And it’s that — the idea that she could use these bouts of insomnia to actually do something _useful_ — which has her glancing over her shoulder at where her lover sleeps on, arm stretched out over her recently vacated pillow. There’s little he, or anyone else in their party really, has been able to do where Merlin is concerned (except for Belle, really, and even then most of her assistance is book-based). Emma, Regina is still purposefully leaving out of this; she’s already tapped into enough dark magic as it is, and on Regina’s behalf, no less.

It’s there, with Emma, and King Arthur and his whole circle, that the others have devoted their time to — to camaraderie and distractions and gestures of goodwill. But it’s not always enough, she knows: David’s little jaunt with Arthur had been proof enough of that, but Regina’s not stupid or blind, she knows, she sees the others. She finds it in the afternoons Henry retreats to the stables, quiet and sullen (and there’s a girl, there, Regina knows, a shimmer of a possibility she is not at all ready to face). It’s in the constant motion of Snow’s feet against stone, of circling and circling until Emma snaps, withdraws, leaves her mother to seek out somewhere (someone) else to channel all of that concentrated devotion toward (and that too, Regina has been on the receiving end of, Snow’s endless ring of light).

And it’s — it’s in the way Robin’s fingers linger longer against her skin with each passing night, trying valiantly to massage all of the tension out of her shoulders, her neck and back to try and start each new day fresh. Regina’s teeth dig into her lower lip as she watches him sleep on, now, unfettered by the darkness she carries about her like the shell of a ghost.

This is her burden alone to bear.

So it’s with a deep breath and dread settling in the pit of her stomach that Regina pushes away from the windowsill, squares her shoulders, and ducks into the en suite bathing chambers to ready herself for the day. She could use magic, she knows, _has_ , on more than one occasion, but there’s something about the ritual of it all this morning that’s appealing to her — gives her time to find her center and pull on armor to go into battle. She’s not slow about it, but she doesn’t rush through any of it either, bathes and brushes and rolls hot curlers into parts of her hair, bobby pins bit between her teeth. Her fingers reach toward the jewelry armoire, skitter over gold and silver alike — a bracelet, a pair of dangling earrings — before she decides against them and lets her hand fall away.

(She’s already carrying enough weight, today.)

By the time her face is painted on and she’s slipped into a gown for the day (the red, she settles on, her favorite of the bunch, though she’s growing fonder of the purple and the blue and even the green one), she’s managed to tuck away every stray hair and sweep the cascading curls over her shoulder. The sky has started to shift into shades of orange burning into yellow, and with the dawn comes the occasional song of the lovebirds nesting in the trees nearest to their window. She steals a glance over at Robin at the sound, lip worried between her teeth for a moment, but he’s still deep within the clutches of sleep, body curled toward the empty side of the bed. She’s loathe to wake him, even just for half a moment to bid him farewell for the morning.

She still needs space, anyway, to clear her mind so she can tackle today’s headache-inducing stack of overly-complicated translations and unnecessarily convoluted spells and potions, and… if she’s honest with herself, retreating into Merlin’s study means that she doesn’t have to keep avoiding the uncomfortably hopeful gazes of the rest of the others. Her earlier parting kiss will have to suffice for this morning, she decides, so it’s with love in her lungs that she holds her breath and tiptoes her way out of their chambers, straps of her silver heels clutched between her fingers all the while. It’s only when she’s pulled the heavy wooden door shut behind her as quietly as she can that she slips into the shoes, hoping her decision to opt out of the hosiery she’d been given doesn’t leave her with blisters on her feet.

She’s down two sets of hallways and is about to pass through her third and last before reaching the spiraling stairs leading up to Merlin’s tower when she glances sidelong, briefly, down an adjacent corridor and ends up doing a doubletake, slowing to a stop. At the other end of the corridor, just across from the corner window, she sees Killian and Emma tucked away together on the floor, slowly being bathed in rising light. Regina squints a bit to discern details: he’s reclined against the wall, an arm draped around Emma’s shoulders as she leans against his. They’re awake, that much is clear, but she can tell even from here that they’re unfocused, drifting, almost too quiet for the hour even though there are pockets of the palace starting to come to life. And they’re holding hands over Killian’s thigh, fingers intertwined, but it’s only when she looks a little closer that Regina realizes Emma’s hand is trembling in his grasp.

Regina doesn’t give it a second thought, turns toward darkness ready to drown, but she’s barely taken more than a half step in their direction when Killian turns his head slightly at the sound of her heels against stone. She freezes a little in place, meets his gaze over the top of Emma’s head and feels something in her stomach twist at the sight of heavy circles under his eyes, dark and purple. She swallows hard and wonders if he even slept last night.

(She knows full well Emma hadn’t — _hasn’t_ , at all, in weeks.)

Torn, Regina sways a little on the spot, lip worried between her teeth as she debates her options. She’s not sure which is the right call, here, doesn’t know if Emma really, truly needs her help right now, or what she could offer up if that ends up being the case. And even then, she knows Emma Swan well enough to know that darkness only exacerbates that woman’s tendency to push people away when she needs them most, so there is a very real possibility that even _if_ Emma needs help she won’t want it — especially, in this case, from the person responsible for her predicament in the first place.

Killian’s another matter entirely — his mood swings have been almost as volatile as Emma’s have been since even before their arrival in Camelot (since Emma had lifted her arm toward the sky in tribute, Regina reminds herself, the memory of him spewing near-venom at her until they’d managed to find Emma here still uncomfortably fresh). She’s sure he’d follow Emma’s lead, if that’s what it came down to, but Emma has seemed far more… lost than any of them had ever expected her to be. There’s fear there, in her eyes, but there’s more behind it too — a hesitation in Emma’s heart at the places where the dark meets the light.

Regina feels that in equal measure now, a mirror across the great divide, but still she can’t make up her mind as to whether or not to bridge the gap. She wrings her hands together, arches her brow in silent question and hopes Killian will make the right call. Almost imperceptibly, he shakes his head, but there’s a small smile twisting onto his lips, tinged with exhaustion and melancholy around the edges. It’s as much of an it’s okay that she thinks he can offer her, so Regina nods in reply and takes the half-step back, resuming her trek to the study.

Maybe Emma _has_ learned that she doesn’t have to go it alone, after all.

Still, the brief encounter leaves Regina rattled enough that by the time she arrives in the study, she can’t quite seem to get her hands to stop fidgeting. She only needs to light a candle or two — there’s enough daylight spilling in through the windows by now — and conjure herself a cup of tea before she can set to work, fingers flipping through pages as she paces the length of the room back and forth and over again, the spine of each book heavy in her hands.

It’s well over an hour, probably closer to two, before she’s discovered or interrupted at all, and even then the intrusion only comes from Belle, poking her head into the room to locate Regina at long last. Their exchange is brief, perfunctory at best: Belle informs her that breakfast is about to be served — a silent inquiry that Regina declines as politely as she can — and in return, Regina obliges Belle’s offer (request, really, because Belle likes to keep busy too, wants to be useful where she can) of translating anything else with a reasonably thick stack of parchment she’d discovered just the day before, tucked away in a folder at the bottom of one of Merlin’s chests. Belle accepts the pile, eyes full of equal parts intrigue and trepidation, and thankfully doesn’t linger, leaving Regina alone in her studies.

After that, time seems to bleed together and blur, daylight unchanging outside as Regina buries herself in work. Her heart flips, skips a beat when she comes across a book with the same cover and coloring as Henry’s fairy tales, and while it too, is full of history, by the time she’s halfway through, Regina has long since sunk down onto one of the wooden chairs near the table and resigned herself to the realization that this one was full of nothing but blood and war and famine and the occasional haphazard experiment of alchemists. She loses her temper, hours after Belle’s departure, when the transformation potion she stumbles upon and opts to try yields little else but puffs of pink smoke, and while she’s not exactly _proud_ of it she has to admit that throwing a few vials, a flask, and a teacup across the room took the edge off (and, okay, was maybe more than a little satisfying).

(She’s beginning to think Merlin was just an asshole.)

Still, she’s downright cranky by the time she registers the shift in temperature in the room, and all she wants to do is lay face down on the stone floor and close her eyes for a little while. She’s made pretty much no progress today after having sifted through pages upon pages of history and research and mindless drivel (she’s still having trouble believing that the greatest sorcerer of all time kept a _diary_ , much less that he spent days, weeks, months putting quill to parchment and prattling on about someone named Nimue and _honestly_ , what kind of name is that anyway). Her short-lived little venture into alchemy aside, the majority of her time in here today has been spent reading to the point where all of the words start to blur together, and as a result she can feel a headache brewing behind her eyes.

Sighing heavily, Regina grips the edges of the wooden table and curls her toes in her shoes, feet sore and back stiff, muscles twisting and spasming a bit in protest of every uncomfortable position they’ve been forced into today. The pain behind her eyes flares up, zings sharp through her head and she sucks in a breath, chest feeling tight at how thick the air in the room has become — muggy and weighted and not at all wet. Stubbornly, she squeezes her eyes shut, hangs her head and tries to let her brain rest, just for a few minutes, before she decides upon a new direction.

She must be more out of it than she thinks she is because she doesn’t even startle at the arms that wrap around her waist, brain too fuzzy to do more than register _Robin_ and _safe_ before she’s leaning back into him, everything in her back stretching and popping and cracking in relief at the change in position. She drops her head back a little, anchors her hands over his and angles her neck just slightly to give him enough access to be better heard. “Thought I’d come say hello,” he murmurs, dropping a pleasantly warm kiss to her bare shoulder, “since I haven’t seen you yet today.”

Her lips twist, quirk into the beginnings of a smile, and she can’t keep the teasing tone out of her voice when she quips, “Hello? Not _good morning_?”

“I’d offer up _good morning_ ,” he argues, and his voice is light but there’s something… off about it, too, “if it weren’t already afternoon.”

She tenses up a bit at that, smile faltering. “Is it?” Robin _hmm_ s, nuzzles against her neck and brushes another kiss against her skin. Regina takes a breath to steady herself, tries to relax against him again, but she knows she’s treading a thin line here; Robin knows her too well to allow her thin excuses to go unnoticed. “Have the boys kept you busy?”

“No more than usual,” he reasons, tucking his chin over her shoulder. “They’re with the Charmings now —the King was gracious enough to invite them on a tour of the lakeside. I think they were just a _touch_ excited at the prospect of going swimming in all this heat. And _yes_ ,” he tacks on, just before she can gather breath to interject with an inquiry, “it’s perfectly safe, I asked, and Guinevere packed oils to protect their skin. They’ll be fine.”

She _does_ relax at that, softening back into a smile. “Have I mentioned lately how much I love you?”

Robin’s arm tightens around her waist, just slightly, but it’s affectionate, grateful and warm. “Yes,” he murmurs, bestowing a soft kiss to her cheek, “but it’s always nice to hear it.”

Regina finds herself leaning into him a little more, gravitating toward his lips even as he pulls back, but she forces herself not to look at him yet — she will be utterly _distracted_ when she does. “Were there um — did any of the others accompany them?” she asks, fumbling over her words a bit as he drops a second kiss to her cheek, this one a little higher with just a touch more heat.

“Some,” he answers, lips dragging up to her temple, tracing down along her brow. “A few of the dwarves, most of my men. Granny’s looking after Neal for the afternoon,” he mumbles, sucking a sweet kiss against the back of her ear. “Belle’s still going over the translations you handed off this morning.”

“And uh, Emma?” she inquires breathlessly, fingers slotting through his over her middle. “Kil — _oh!_ — Killian?” she chokes out, startled by the way he sucks, nips at a spot along her neck.

She feels him grin against her skin, the gesture enough to center her focus again and cause her to arch an eyebrow in curiosity. “Horseback riding,” he answers. “I think Emma was having a bit of a bad day. Killian figured getting out of doors might help.”

“Why didn’t they just go to the lake with the others?”

His smile falters, she can sense it before she can feel it, and though his simmering, teasing kisses have stopped, he keeps his arms wrapped firmly around her waist. “She was rather… quiet, at breakfast,” he offers up after a too-long pause. “I don’t think she was much up for company.” A beat, and then, “Seems you have that in common, today.”

Something in her chest twists, at that, a reminder that he does not, will not let her little isolating spells go unnoticed and _god_ , she loves him but he can be such a pain in the ass sometimes. “What gave you that impression?” she counters.

“You were gone when I woke this morning,” he says, quiet and low and a touch melancholic. Regina deflates a bit at that, obstinacy beginning to waver. “You didn’t come downstairs to greet the boys. You skipped breakfast — and lunch. Have you eaten at all today?”

“I… had a cup of tea,” she says, and that’s true, at least, though she realizes a few seconds too late that she doesn’t exactly have great proof of that.

Robin catches on far too quickly for her liking, if the way he stifles a snort in her hair is any indication. “I see,” he muses, “and tell me, exactly how much of that did you actually consume before you destroyed dear Guinevere's china?”

“I drank the whole cup,” she sniffs, glancing menacingly at the broken shards a few feet away.

He _hmm_ s once more before adjusting his hold on her, arms shifting up a little to settle around her ribs instead, just below her breasts. “Is that all?” he pries, and god, he’s really not going to let this go, is he?

“I haven’t been hungry,” she argues, but it’s a pathetic attempt, a feeble half-truth and near lie. Her stomach’s been twisting in knots since she awoke this morning, but not all of that can be pinned upon her anxiety. Well, it _can_ , but that would be an outright lie, and they promised, they _swore_ they wouldn’t do that with one another. And she hasn’t, for the most part, has leaned into his faith any time she felt like wavering. She doesn’t want to start — not now, not ever. But the words stick in her throat like a coil, compressed tight by shame (and more, so much, much more that she can’t even think in explicit terms yet, much less say out loud).

“You’ve dropped nearly a half stone since we first arrived,” he points out, gentle but firm and there’s _fear_ in his voice, no, no, fuck.

Regina can’t quite help the way she tenses, bristles at the observation (she does not, _does not_ like the direction this conversation is going). Her walls flare up as she turns in his embrace, eyes narrowed and jaw jumping in irritation. “I didn’t realize you kept track of that sort of thing.”

“I _don’t_ ,” he bites back, and oh, there’s… anger there, too, matching each lick of her flame in kind. It’s his turn to work his jaw, eyes flitting over her face as he clearly contemplates his next choice in words. She feels his fingers spasm, flex against her ribs, but he settles right back in, careful to keep his touch gentle, and it’s there, at the centered point of contact, that Regina feels the burn of his disappointment. He doesn’t need to voice his ire aloud for her know the source behind it. It’s beneath her — beneath _them_ to resort to such underhanded tactics, to throwing around baseless accusations as weapons just to win a war neither of them had agreed to fight.

Most — not all, but most of the last vestiges of her stubbornness, her pride fizzles out, shoulders sagging in silent resignation. But it’s enough for Robin: he softens almost immediately in kind, face crumpling a bit before he slides his hands around to the small of her back, pulling her closer. “I’m just worried about you,” he breathes, nudging her nose with his own. “There are days when we hardly see you for more than an hour.”

“I’m fine,” she insists, nudging back and curling her hands around his waist, leather stiff against her skin. It’s probably a lie as much as it’s a truth — fine is relative, after all — but it’s all she has right now. Her mind is too fuzzy for much else at this point, and prying back the layers of _fine_ means getting that much closer to the heart of the matter, and that… isn’t a wall she’s ready to take down. She trusts him, she does — most of all with her heart, but there’s so much more to this than that.

(She will not own up to her greatest failing — not yet.)

Robin _tsk_ s, somehow managing to only sound a little derisive. “Say it one more time,” he drawls, “and I’ll believe you.”

“ _Fine_ ,” she reiterates, punctuating it with a kiss. It’s meant to be a quick little thing, a sweet smack to his lips, but he chases her before she’s really pulled away, presses in a little insistently and digs his fingers into the small of her back and that’s… _oh_ , that’s kind of nice, actually. Some of the tension bleeds out of her muscles just from that, has her arching against him as their mouths break, fuse, part, and the taste of him when he slips his tongue into her mouth is sweet, biting and warm. The sound that punches out of her throat and buzzes against his lips is equal parts whimper and moan and she resolutely does not _care_ , hands skimming, scrambling their way up his chest to curl around his neck, thumbs sweeping over the stubble along his jaw.

He pulls back, teeth dragging along her lower lip before he’s diving back in again, but she doesn’t miss the dark heat in his eyes, burns it to memory as he tangles a hand in her hair and has her stumbling back, one step, and then another until she’s bumping into the edge of the table with a muffled _oh_! Another kiss, harsher this time, has her rocking up onto the balls of her feet and one kiss more, wet and off-center and more desperate than the last and suddenly her knees are bending and she’s leaning against the table, up, _up_ —

“Robin,” she breathes, reluctantly tearing her her mouth away. “Not here, we can’t —”

“Come with me,” he insists, voice not nearly as wrecked as she would have expected it to be. “Just for an hour Regina, you’ve more than earned a break.”

She exhales heavily as he cradles her jaw, eyes warm and pleading and _wanting_ and it’s tempting, it really is, to follow the thunder in her heart and the pulse between her thighs and duck away into their chambers for an hour. Their time between the sheets in Camelot has been far less frequent than she thinks even she expected it to be, considering they share a room, a bed, a soul. And she knows that’s mostly her own doing, knows she’s burned the midnight oil to the point of passing out the moment her head so much as brushes against her pillow. But there’d been more there for a while, too, the first week or so they’d taken up residence in the castle, her touches tentative and nervous and far too light to stoke heat.

(It had taken his hands, in the end, strong and calloused and sure, to bring her hands against the places he’d bled for her and reassure her his skin was not cobbled together with shards of glass stained crimson.)

It’s the memory of that, in the end, the shimmer of Emma’s hand where the blade had pierced Robin’s flesh, which makes her decision for her. “I… can’t,” she declines, grateful she at least sounds as regretful as she feels because _god_ , she does not want to give up the way it feels to have his body pressed against hers.

“Just for a walk,” he amends, persistent. “You’ve allowed yourself that before, yeah? Some fresh air in the garden?”

He’s right, of course, which is equal parts soothing and infuriating. He’s borne witness to at least half of her encounters with their boys in the garden, and that alone is enough to make his case. And on the one hand, a walk might actually benefit her more today than it usually does: her back is _killing_ her, her chest tight from the thickness of the air in the room, and that headache she’d felt coming on a bit ago is still simmering in the background, waiting. If she ducks out into the garden, she may be able to temper any number of those things — might be able to breathe a little easier, have Robin work the knots out of her back, let the timbre of his voice and the ease of his conversation clear her head for a little while. An hour with Robin could make a world of difference, in the end.

And yet.

She has spent a _third_ of her day in this study and has absolutely _nothing_ to show for it, and where the memory of Emma’s hands shake, rattle at the edges of her mind, Regina slips her own down to rest over Robin’s heart. “I can’t,” she says again, dropping her gaze. “There’s so much to sort through in here. I’ve been at it for weeks and only scratched the surface. And… you were right, earlier,” she admits, voice threadbare. “I think Emma had a bad night.”

“As did you, I’d wager,” he murmurs.

She tenses up at that, just a touch, and somewhere in the back of her mind is an idle wonder if he’s borne witness to more of her nightmares than he’s let on. “I slept,” she argues, still not looking up at him.

“Emma can’t help that she’s not able to for the time being,” Robin counters, but it’s gentle, a reminder of influences beyond any of their control regardless of the choices they’d made to lead them here.

“I just want to help,” she sighs, leaning in to brush her nose against his. “Short of playing the part, I don’t feel like I’ve _done_ anything.”

“Other than Belle, there’s not much the rest of us _can_ do where Merlin’s concerned,” he reminds her. “You are —”

“— the only one who can, I know,” she says, pulling back to look at him properly once more. “The curse of being gifted, I suppose,” she drawls, trying for a tease but falling a little flat.

Still, Robin’s mouth twitches up into a half-smile, tinged with fondness. He considers her for a long moment, eyes roving her face before he finally heaves a great sigh and tucks her hair behind her ear. “There’s really no persuading you to leave your tower before dinner, is there?”

“Careful,” she warns, but there’s a lilt in her voice, much more successful in her teasing now. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Treebeard out there could still hear us.” Robin’s brow wrinkles, betraying his confusion at the nickname. “We’ll add it to the list,” she sighs, patting his chest gently. “I’m sure Henry will be thrilled to introduce you to _Lord of the Rings_. You’ll like it,” she promises at his arched eyebrow. “Elves, archers, lots of fantasy things. Magic, too, but I think you’ve grown a tolerance for that, wouldn’t you say?” she flirts.

“More than,” he murmurs, low and full of heat, and her belly twists with desire at the way his eyes flick down to her lips.

Regina tugs her lower lip between her teeth and sucks in a breath at the way his nails graze ever so lightly against her scalp. “Raincheck?” she requests, breathy and high. _That_ pulls his focus back up to her eyes but that’s even worse because now she can see that dark desire bleeding into his irises again, blue burning the breath from her lungs against every beat of her heart. He’s considering the offer, that much is obvious, but he hasn’t quite given up yet, not entirely: she can see it in the way his eyes narrow, feel it in the way his hand rubs idly against the small of her back.

And then he’s the one biting his bottom lip, a deliberate, teasing temptation, and the words _insufferable presumption_ barely flit across her mind before she’s arching toward him. She presses her body flush against his, revels in the way his grip on her tightens and dances her fingertips across his collarbone in retaliation, careful to keep her touch featherlight. “Tonight,” she compromises, lips ghosting over his but she will not kiss him, not yet, not until they’ve found equal ground. “I’ll come down to dinner, we can say goodnight to the boys together, and then you,” she mumbles, pulls back to look him in the eyes, “can show me what I missed out on this morning.”

He’s taking a step forward before she can so much as blink, has her bumping into the table again with a startled hitch of breath, and the hand on her back skims around and down to settle on her hip meaningfully. “Why delay the inevitable?” he argues, and _fuck_ , this man does not fight fair.

She swallows hard but doesn’t pull away, tries to keep her fingers from trembling against his exposed collarbone as she fiddles with the lapel of his shirt. “Aren’t you the one who’s an advocate for proper timing?”

The breath he takes in answer is deep, measured like he’s very much at war with himself, and it’s by a slim margin, she thinks, that he doesn’t lean in to claim a kiss. “Normally, yes,” he allows, “though recently I’ve begun to think that waiting for the right moment isn’t always the best option. Sometimes you have to make the most of the ones you have, messy as they are.”

It’s _a messy, complicated situation_ all over again, blue boring into brown on the park bench so many months ago, and for a minute every page in this infernal study is twenty-three in all of its imperfections, folded and ripped and taped together along the frayed edges — a story that never was, and never could be, but reminds them of what they have come to be, now.

What they always can be — pixie dust and soul bonds and kisses anointed with true love be damned.

“If you really want to wait,” Robin murmurs, reclaiming her attention, “if you want me to leave, I will. I waited for you for decades, after all,” he says, teasing, chuckling lightly as he brushes her nose with his own and god damn, if that doesn’t make her heart jump a little in her chest. “What’s a few more hours?”

It’s that, in the end — one innocuous little remark, teasing and light and not at all full of manipulation or malice — which makes up her mind for her, helps her see things a little more clearly. She wants to help Emma — she does, she _will_ , Regina refuses to give up in any capacity at all — but… it’s also pretty much all Regina _has_ done since their arrival, for the most part. Every minute she’s spent holed up in this study or the library or digging through the Camelot archives has been in an effort to help cleave Emma from the bind of the dagger’s darkness, but it’s only now, with the full force of Robin’s devotion turned on her that Regina allows herself to see the situation for the twisted irony it is.

_You worked too hard to have your happiness destroyed_ is an echo ringing in her ears, and Emma is not drowning for Regina to refute the opportunity to live in it.

And, well, maybe Emma isn’t the only one who needs a reminder that she is not alone, in all of this.

“No,” she whispers, ghosting a kiss over his lips. “I want you to stay.”

His answering kiss is equal parts soft and bruising, sweet and biting and there is such _yearning_ in the way he breathes her name across her lips — a too-reverent _Regina_ that sounds every bit like the savior she knows she will only ever pretend to be. It has her gripping the lapel of his shirt harder as he presses her more firmly against the edge of the table, fingers threading through her hair as he leans in for another kiss, off-center, and another, hasty, messy and wet and another until they bleed together, each even more indistinguishable from the last.

He can’t get close enough now that he’s been granted permission, it seems, keeps stepping in and pressing and leaning forward, crowding her space until she stumbles back a final time, hands flying out behind her, fumbling for purchase against the edge of the table, her fingers curling around rough, unvarnished wood as the hand in her hair slips down, skims, smooths along her side to rest on her hip like the other. He pulls the breath from her, a desperate, rattling thing as his teeth drag, nip at her lower lip when he pulls away, and if she wasn’t already slick between her thighs she certainly is now, sex spasming with a beat of arousal at the way his eyes flutter open, blue blown and burning with desire. Her arms start to tremble from keeping herself propped up, arched against him as she is, but Robin is there, he’s _always_ there, hands skimming, dipping, curling beneath her thighs and lifting, hoisting her up onto the tabletop and startling a high gasp from her lungs.

He’s between her legs in an instant, using his grip to pull her right up against the edge and her hands are flying up, latching onto to him as she curls her hands around to the back of his neck, nails scratching lightly against his scalp. That’s all it takes for his mouth to envelop hers again, tongue teasing against hers as he falls into her embrace, hands still smoothing, skimming along her thighs. She loves him like this, close and clinging as she wraps herself around him — something she _wishes_ she could do properly right now, god. This dress may be comfortable and have him undressing her with his eyes but right now it is a god damn thorn in her side, heavy and long. The girdle isn’t helping either, gorgeous as it is, a weight around her hips and an anchor down the length of her leg, and altogether combined they’re keeping him just shy of being close enough.

It’s only when he’s finally torn his mouth away from hers, lips dragging, skipping along her jaw before he sucks a hot kiss beneath her ear that she realizes he’s had the same thought because his hands are reaching down, fumbling with the fastening of the buckle on her girdle before it unhooks, clinks and unspools from around her hips. He’s quick to toss it over the back of one of the chairs, a bit too careless for her taste (those are _crystals_ , after all), but she’ll have to admonish him for it later, she decides, because his hands are back to her in an instant, searching, grappling for the hem of her dress. And then he’s pushing, shoving and bunching until it’s just past her knees, the force of it tipping her back just enough to have her reaching out a hand behind her for balance, palm smacking loudly against the harsh wood of the table, and in an instant she remembers where they are. “Not here,” she insists once more, breathy and high as she moves her free hand atop his over her knee, stilling his movement.

His hand stays, obeys her command, but Robin doesn’t even bother lifting his head from her neck, just keeps grazing kisses along the column of her throat. “What Merlin doesn’t know won’t hurt him,” he mumbles against her ear, low and warm and every bit tempting.

That’s not what she meant, not at all and he _knows_ that, but Regina finds herself grinning anyway, turning into him a little so she can murmur into his ear in kind. “You never did have all that much respect for other people’s property, did you?”

He pauses, lingers just below her ear for half a moment before he’s pulling back just enough to meet her eyes. There’s a glint in his irises, mischievous to the last, and the way his teeth dig into his lower lip has her belly twisting with renewed arousal. “Figured you’d prefer the table over grass or hay or, you know, dirt,” he teases, nudging his nose against hers playfully. “Or am I not meant to show you what you missed out on, this morning?”

Her lips twist, play at a smile as she feigns indignation. “Well,” she sighs, arching just enough to make her chest jut out a bit more, and she doesn’t miss the way his eyes flick down, linger over the swell of her breasts just below the neckline, “if _you’re_ going to insist on doing this here, then I suppose I actually will have to rain check you later,” she muses, every bit a queen in her tone.

“Oh?” he prompts, still not quite able to tear his gaze away from her chest.

“Yes,” she says, matter-of-fact and light, and she can’t help the way she bites her own lip now, coy and deliciously calculating. “Now I have no other choice but to return the favor,” she murmurs, leaning in _just_ a little closer and moving the hand on her knee out, away. She watches as he finally manages to tear his gaze away from her chest, eyes following as she reaches out, skims her knuckles along the front of his pants, and she absolutely _relishes_ the way the hitch in his breath matches the slight jolt of his cock at her near-touch, searching, seeking more.

But that’s all she gives him, won’t do more than graze her knuckles too-light to tease, and when his eyes finally shift to meet hers again, they’re both fighting full smiles. “I’ll have to show you what you’re missing out on by fucking me here,” she says simply, and the first explicit use of what they’re about to do has promise, yearning flashing in his eyes, “and not in our bed.”

Regina pulls her hand away, retreats back to where Robin’s is still resting on her knee, and it’s with one perfectly arched eyebrow that she encloses her fingers around his and shifts his hand _up_ , just a fraction of an inch.

“I look forward to it,” Robin chuckles, grinning into the next kiss he steals, his hands gathering up the material of her skirt until most of it is bunched up just above mid-thigh. And then his fingers are dipping beneath, dancing up the rest of her thigh, and she breaks the kiss with a soft smack, pulls back just as his fingers find the waistband of her underwear and skim along the edge, still testing, teasing, waiting. And it’s reckless, really, to let him do this here but she _aches_ for him, wants him inside of her, skin on skin and there’s only so much they can feasibly do, in here, but she’ll take what she can get. These moments are precious and few, stolen and sworn as a secret between two. So Regina digs her teeth into her lower lip and leans back, resting her weight on her hands, and she absolutely relishes the way his Adam’s apple bobs in his throat when she lifts her hips up just enough to grant the last bit of permission he seeks.

His fingers hook in the waistband instantly, tug and pull until at last her underwear’s pulled beyond her heels, and she’s grateful he has enough presence of mind to at least tuck them away in one of his pockets rather than tossing it aside on the nearest surface. The _c’mere_ that tumbles from his lips is equal parts murmur and near-growl, and Regina can’t help smiling even as she reaches out to take his proffered hand, letting him tug her back up to sitting straight.

And then his hand is beneath her skirt, fingers dragging through her wet folds, and Regina only just manages to suppress the startled moan that escapes her by sinking her teeth into the juncture between his neck and shoulder. That has him arching, bucking against her as his teeth graze against her ear and oh, _oh_ , she can feel him against the inside of her thigh now, half-hard and hot and wanting, fuck, _fuck_ she wants him inside of her.

She tries to tell him as much but her words are caught in her throat, buried by half-strangled moans as he teases her, fingers dragging up, back down through her folds with just enough pressure to leave her wanting more, has her hips rocking fitfully into his hand. “So wet, darling,” he says, voice dropping half an octave.

“Missed you,” she breathes, tucking her face against his neck properly.

“Right here,” he murmurs, lips grazing her temple. “Tell me what you want.”

“Insi — _fuck_!” she gasps, bucking hard into his hand when he lightly pinches her clit between two fingers on the upstroke. “Inside, I want you inside of me.” The kiss he’s about to press to her brow turns tense, tight and bruising as he fights back a moan that _she_ can feel in the back of her chest. His fingers slow as he pulls back, lingering, just touching lightly enough to cause the barest friction against her sex and it has her clit _throbbing_ , aching for touch just out of her reach. It takes everything in her not to chase his hand with her hips again, to meet his dark eyes with her own as his gaze flits over her face, burning all the while.

She can work with that.

She squeezes the hand she’s holding a little tighter, uses her grip to pull him closer, shoving half of her skirt all the way up to her hip. “Don’t tease,” she commands, breathless and low.

Slowly, her prince of thieves breaks out into a grin. “Oh, I wouldn’t _dream_ of it,” he murmurs back, lips just shy of grazing hers. It’s _absolutely_ unconvincing — a line meant to distract and placate — but he surprises her, in the end, when he sweeps his fingers up through her wet folds again, quick and firm and pulling the sharpest of gasps from her lungs. “Lie back,” he instructs, teeth nipping at her lower lip before she can pull away, and she’s bearing his grin as she leans back to obey.

The movement causes a disconnect though, has her fingers slipping away and him pulling his own out from between her thighs. She almost whines at the loss, hesitates halfway down and props herself up on her elbows instead, permitting herself a little pout. But he’s not even looking at her anymore, at least not in the eyes, gaze dropping down to where she’s bare and glistening wet for him. Her breath feels heavy, hot in her chest as she watches his tongue dart out to wet his lips, clearly craving, and really, who is she to deny him (them both) any longer?

The room feels suddenly much, much warmer.

Regina parts her legs, just a little more, corner of her mouth curving up into a coy smile as he slowly lifts his gaze to meet hers. There’s almost… warning, in his eyes, a silent echo of her earlier _don’t tease_ , but they’re well beyond that now. Carefully, she inches closer to the edge of the table, mindful of dragging her bare skin across the wood before she arches her hips, ever so slightly, and arches an eyebrow as if to say _well_?

Robin gives, just a little, sucks in a breath and reaches down to palm himself through his pants and oh, fuck, that’s just not fair at all. She can feel all of that carefully constructed, seductive charm melt out of her at the sight, chest growing tight as his fingers curl loosely around the outline of his cock and pull, once, twice. And that’s _it_ , she’s done playing games, has half a mind to sit back up and undo his belt, the tie of his pants and pull his cock out herself, guide him into her and have him _fuck her_ already — propriety and risks be damned.

He’s reaching for her once more before she has the chance to follow through, pulls her right up to the edge of the table properly, leaves her legs dangling only for a second before he’s hooking his hands beneath her knees and tucking her legs around his hips. And _fuck_ , if that doesn’t make her shiver in anticipation, the solid heat of him between her legs just shy of where, how she wants him. At long last, Regina lets herself lie back the rest of the way, eyes slipping shut as she swallows, smiles and waits for the blunt pressure of the head of his cock against her opening. She listens for the tell-tale _clink_ of metal, fingers flexing against the tabletop as she feels him shift between her legs, not quite so wrapped around him anymore, but it never comes.

“Indulge me a minute,” he murmurs, and the sudden puff of air against her sex has her starting, jolting a little as she snaps her head up awkwardly to look at him. Oh, he’s moved all right, has sunken down to his knees at the edge of the table, hands still braced under her knees, and between her thighs she finds his face instead, close enough to taste. Only his eyes are visible from where she’s awkwardly arched, curled to look at him, but Regina understands the intent behind all that brilliant blue without even having to ask.

Robin may have agreed not to tease her, but that damn well doesn’t mean he’s not going to _savor_ her.

Fuck, she’s missed him.

That’s all the warning she gets, though, before his mouth is on her, lips sucking eagerly at her clit, tongue teasing out to press, lick, flick against her every few passes. Instantly her head falls back against the table probably harder than it should, landing with a bit of a dull _thunk_ , but Regina feels none of the pain, can’t do more than groan out a guttural _guh_ in satisfaction, eyes slipping shut once more. And this is ridiculous, she should not allow this, can’t believe she’s letting him _eat her out on Merlin’s table_ , right in plain view of the study door, but it’s hard to bring herself to care when it feels this _good_ and oh — _oh_!

He switches quickly, doesn’t linger at her clit all that long before shifting down, dragging his tongue from entrance to just below her clit and back again. Keeps his tongue broad and firm, drinking her in, curls on each pass back down and grazing against her with the underside of his tongue and fuck, that feels better than she’d expect it to, is just different enough to keep her arousal piqued, building steadily. Her whole sex feels like it’s buzzing beneath him, thighs trembling just a touch, but it’s only when she digs her teeth into her bottom lip in an effort to bite back a whimper that Robin lets any of his own simmering arousal bubble forth, a magnificent little moan spilling from his mouth, muffled against her sex.

Robin has missed her, too.

She feels a little bad, honestly, about not letting him linger long — definitely _wants_ his mouth down there much, much longer when she finally gets him in their bed tonight — but she can feel the way her heart starts to sink down, a steady beat as the throbbing pulse behind her clit grows harder. And she still wants, needs to have him inside of her, longs to come around him tight and keep him close, so it’s with only some reluctance that Regina blindly reaches out a hand until her fingers sink into his hair. He stills, just briefly, enough for her to relax her grip on him and wet her lips before she speaks. “Inside,” she rasps, voice raw and low and resting just behind her sternum. “I want to come — inside.”

Thankfully, _blissfully_ he does not argue with her, doesn’t try to draw things out, just dives down for one last dragging, sucking pass over her sex, her clit before he’s rising up out of her hold and moving in close again, tucking her legs loosely around his hips once more. But this time she doesn’t even get the chance to wait for sound, feel the shift of him pushing his pants down over his hips for enough access before he’s sinking two fingers into her, dragging back out to the second knuckle, and pushing back in again. The _oh!_ it startles out of her comes out shaky, breathy as her eyes flutter open in surprise, vision swimming.

And then Robin comes into clear view, hovering over her as he grips the edge of the table, fucks her with his fingers, and the smile he bestows upon her is so painfully beautiful that it takes her breath away for a moment. There’s something about the image of him, surrounded by stone and backlit by soft sunlight streaming through the windows, collar of his shirt rumpled that has her belly twisting with longing, yearning for all the opportunities she’s wasted over the years. The sheer shimmer of light through glass, moonlight filtering through to touch the places the candles burned bright against the branding on his arm. Stones scattered along the ground, stacked high around them as he followed her lead, stepped where she stepped, saw into her soul when all she’d wanted to do was sleep.

Secrets shared amongst shelves and stories, quarters collected for every missing page and opportunity she’d passed by.

_There’s a bright future for you around every turn, even if you miss one_.

And oh, how she wants to make the most of this opportunity now.

Round one, then.

Her whole body feels like a livewire, thrumming, waiting to spark as she shivers, arches under his touch and for a moment she _wishes_ she weren’t so aware of their surroundings, wishes she’d been a little more patient and somehow managed to get them back to their chambers so she could spend hours with unfettered access to him. She is sweating, shaking beneath this dress, wants it off, wants his skin against hers and his lips wrapped around her nipple, but she’s too far gone now to alter course, heat burning low in the back of her belly as he works his fingers inside of her. So she reaches up, cups a breast with her hand and squeezes for minimal satisfaction, a soft moan punching out of her chest at the light friction.

Robin’s smile twists into something far more delighted, almost devious as he leans in close, hovering over her. He reaches up with his free hand, hooks his fingers into the neckline and makes to tug it down but she arches up, anchors a palm against his cheek and shakes her head, aiming to pull him in for a kiss instead. But the movement adjusts the angle of his hand, his fingers inside of her until they’re pressing _just_ right and she’s falling away from him with a sharp gasp, hips bucking, chasing pleasure. “ _Shit_ ,” she whines, high and reedy and so far gone, god, this is going to be over fast and she really does not fucking care.

“That’s it,” he murmurs, low and encouraging as he tries to keep his fingers pressed to the same spot, stroking, coaxing her closer to the edge. “You’ve no idea what a vision you are right now, Regina, _god_ ,” he breathes, face mere inches from hers and eyes roving her face like he wants to fucking _devour_ her. The image of his face buried between her thighs flashes to the forefront of her mind, the feeling of his tongue a phantom chasing the sensation his fingers stir up now. Her hips buck once more, grind against him chasing spirits as her eyes slip shut, and she can practically _hear_ the grin in his voice when he speaks. “Close, yeah?”

“Mmhmm,” she manages, teeth biting into her bottom lip as the heat in her belly starts to coil. “I — _shit_!” she cries again, hand shooting out to grip the edge of the table blindly at the way his thumb begins to rub quick circles over her clit. She can feel herself squeeze tighter around him, heightening the blunt, _delicious_ pressure of his fingers inside of her as he moves, picks up pace. Vaguely, she’s aware of how wet she is — can hear the all-too-lewd _smack-slap_ of skin on skin with every pivot and stroke of his fingers, can feel all of that slick arousal start to coat her inner thighs, the harsh surface of the wooden table as it shifts and shakes beneath her.

She’s sure she looks a sight, thoroughly on her way to debauched, but any lingering thoughts she may have about their surroundings is lost when Robin speaks again. “You feel _so_ good, darling,” he breathes. She leans into his touch when his fingertips brush against her brow, push her hair back over her shoulder, but she doesn’t open her eyes, loses herself in the timbre of his voice as it drowns out every scraping squeak of the table, every sticky sound of sex. “You’ve no idea how much I’m looking forward to tonight,” he says, every bit a confession, but it’s Regina who whimpers, whines in aching admission at the reminder. “All of this wonderful, wet, warmth around my cock while you ride me.” And shit, he knows her too well, knows precisely what she’d had in store, exactly how she’d planned on fucking him into oblivion later.

Regina gasps, sharp and high when his lips graze along the neckline of her dress, deliberately dancing, teasing, avoiding any attention to her chest. Every sensation is heightened with her eyes closed, skin shivering into gooseflesh at the way he breathes hot and heavy against her. “These gorgeous breasts on display — it was all I could think about,” Robin groans, lips dragging, skittering up along the column of her throat, “when I touched myself this morning.”

Her eyes flutter open at that, breath caught in her chest as his fingers slow, shift into sharper strokes that have her toes curling in her heels. The mere thought has her _dizzy_ with desire, light-headed and overwarm as the picture paints itself in her mind: Robin reclining against the headboard of their bed in that sinful linen sleep shirt, sweat gathering on his collarbone as the candles flicker, flood the room with light and heat; her perched at the foot of the bed watching his fist curl around his cock, stroking, pumping as he spreads his legs and spills his fantasies to her and — 

His teeth nip, suddenly, tug hard and drag at her earlobe and it takes _everything_ in her not to arch up off of the table, to grip the edge until her knuckles probably turn white and clutch Robin’s hair just hard enough to hold on, trying not to hurt. Thank _god_ she’d opted against jewlery for the day but more than _ever_ she wishes they were back in their chambers, wishes she had him naked or at the very least out of this infernal leather tunic so she could sink her teeth into his shoulder, but the time for any such luxuries is long gone. All she can do now is shake beneath him, dress bunched up around her hips as his fingers stroke and press with purpose, every pass of his thumb harder, more firm as it passes over her clit.

_Fuck_ she’s close, is probably a good thirty seconds away from lighting up beneath him so long as he doesn’t shift or stop and she needs this, _badly_ , needs to be able to fall apart for him now so she can carry it with her later, remember this when she’s looking for a safe place to do it in the dark. But she refuses to dwell on it more than that, leans into his light and his love and bucks her hips against his hand one last time, trying to keep him close, maintain the pressure and friction right where she needs it. Pride swells up in her chest at the choked off moan that escapes him and she can only imagine how hard, how aching he is for her right now, wonders how long he’ll last before he’s slipping, spilling into her.

Wonders if he actually _will_ just end up fucking her right here on the table, and the mere prospect of feeling the force of each thrust has her sex tightening around his fingers now, keeping him inside as she climbs, races, scrambles toward that first peak.

And then his hand is gripping beneath her thigh, hoisting her leg up and around his hip and pulling her body just that little bit closer, and every place their skin touches sets off a series of sparks like a fuse, creeping closer to coming by the second. “Don’t stop,” she gasps, feels her thighs clenching in anticipation as his hand shifts up to shamelessly grope, grab at her ass. “Just — _yes_ , just like that,” she rasps, voice rough and raw and low enough that they _both_ know she is _right_ fucking there, this fucking close to coming as his fingers curl inside of her, pick up pace and press more firmly. Everything in her belly tightens, seizes up as she braces for it and she cannot so much as manage his god damn _name_ right now, voice stuck somewhere behind her sternum as his thumb flies fast, firm over her clit and everything rises to the surface, pulls taught like a string and — 

“Your Majesty?”

It happens simultaneously — Robin’s fingers falter just as she snaps away from the orgasm that was _just_ beyond her reach — and they’re both blinking, seeking focus in one another’s eyes, trying to catch their breath at the sudden sound. A beat, and then it happens again, a tentative knock on the study door followed by the same civil voice (one of the castle servants probably) venturing, “Madam Savior?”

Robin’s gaze shifts slightly, like he’s trying to see behind him with his peripheral vision, and Regina hardly has time to swallow before there’s a definitive rattle and twist and click, and the door begins, very slowly, to open.

She doesn’t think, just rockets up off of the table lightning fast and holds onto Robin tight, eyes slipping shut once more as she twists her free hand and thinks _rose gar — fuck, fuck, fingers are still — outside, outside — still so close, I just need —_

The breath punches out of her lungs when they land, haphazardly and entirely off balance, outside of the palace walls in a whirl of magic and smoke. She stumbles as she tries to orient herself, feels his fingers shift inside of her and — “ _Shit_ ,” she gasps, trying valiantly to grab hold of any part of him she can reach to find purchase.

Robin is, inexplicably, the one quicker to recover on the rebound, uses his grip on her leg to hoist her close to him as they stumble, stagger a few paces behind her. Somehow, he manages to guide them even when he’s still knuckle deep inside of her, murmurs _I’ve got you_ and only leaves her floundering a few seconds longer before she feels her back slam up against the trunk of a tree, bark scratching painfully against her even with the buffer of her dress. The startled _ah!_ that escapes her is equal parts pleasure and pain, arousal stoked as the force of the landing has his fingers sinking deeper inside of her, blunt and dragging and — 

“Oh my _god_ ,” she groans, eyes slipping shut once more. Robin leans in close, presses a kiss against her jaw, her cheek, his fingers slowly dragging down, out and no, no, that’s so far beyond what she wants right now. But the thought’s barely crossed her mind, protest evaporating at the edges of her lungs when he sinks his middle finger back in just enough, just _so_ , curves and curls and lands, presses in firm and Regina’s eyes _fly_ open, breath roaring from her lungs like fucking fire, hands slamming down hard on his shoulders in a wild attempt to steady herself.

That tight, coiling tension from earlier dissipates into something bigger, broader, pressure building beneath the pad of his finger and Regina feels like her stomach is in her _throat_ , breath caught below in the chasm between. He shifts, nuzzles his nose against hers and fucking smiles, warm and crooked and entirely too pleased with himself and she would level him with a look if she had the capacity to focus on anything other than the way his fingers feel right now, massaging perfectly over her g-spot, caressing at the back of her thigh even as he holds her leg in place.

Her thighs are starting to tremble — whether from the prolonged teasing or the new position, she’s not sure (not sure she really _cares_ , either) — and it’s just shy of too much. Her body is achingly desperate to come, _begging_ for release and she knows she can get there, knows she’s just shy of being right up at the edge again but she needs — “ _Faster_ ,” she breathes, touching her forehead to his. Robin obliges, easily and without complaint and god, his wrist must be killing him by now but he’s not letting up, finger creating a delicious friction against her opening, her folds as he pulls out by half and sinks back in again, sharp and fast. And _god_ , his fingertip right up against her g-spot has pleasure and pressure resonating out through the rest of her sex like vibrations from the beat of a drum and fuck, fuck, shit she’s going to _come_ come, rhythm picking up pace as his finger plays faster, harder, and — 

She starts to cry out — _fuck, Robin, oh_ — but his mouth is covering hers in an instant, muffling the moans that burn at her throat like wildfire, desperate for release. It’s the first time he’s kissed her, properly, since before he’d tugged off her underwear earlier and she is _drowning_ in it now, can taste herself on his tongue but she _barely_ has time for more than half a sharp intake of breath before her orgasm bursts forth, her entire body _wrapped_ in pleasure as she tenses, tightens and — _oh_!

The sheer force of it pushes Robin’s finger out of her, has her hips bucking and her _wrenching_ her mouth away as her head falls back against the tree, mouth dropping open in a silent scream as she quite literally comes, gushes all over his wrist and hand. Another jerk of her hips and again, her nails digging into the leather at his shoulders as she feels it start to coat, drip down her thighs and _again_ , sex spasming as she pivots forward again, and again, a staccato of three, and then four, and then five, legs _quaking_ from the sheer intensity of it as her body acts of its own accord.

She’s not even aware that she’s lost her footing, what little of it there was to have, until Robin is gathering her up against him, hand skimming soothingly over her back. “I’ve got you,” he promises, voice distant, almost dream-like. The hand on her thigh shifts to hook under the back of her knee, coax her into letting her leg down, but that’s a mistake, he’s not prepared for how unsteady she is as she trembles with tremors from the aftershocks. The skirt of her dress falls, finally, once they bring her leg back down, but Regina starts to go with it, stumbling, staggering and slumping against the tree as she slides, scrapes her way into a heap on the ground. Robin is there, hands gentle and strong as he goes with her, guides her.

Her mind is a pleasant fog once she sinks all the way down, only able to shiver and let her eyes slip shut, legs still spasming sporadically. Clumsily, blindly, she hooks her fingers loosely into the collar of his shirt as he curls in close and tucks his face against her neck, breathing hard.

Together, they try to root down.

_Well then_.


	2. Chapter 2

Vaguely, she’s aware of the hand he still has tucked beneath her dress, fingers skittering lightly along the back of her thigh and fuck, his whole hand is _soaked_ , lower part of his sleeve damp and tacky. Slowly he sweeps his fingers up, trails through the slick coat of come on her thighs, spreading it slightly as he curls up and in, caressing her inner thigh just shy of her sex. Her breath catches at every pass near, releases, shakes when he drags his fingers away again and she is _fire_ under his hands, flames stoked even as the last vestiges of her orgasm start to flicker down into embers.

In its wake Regina finds that she’s still pleasantly tight, open, and even with the slight spasms of her sex to buffer against further intrusion (to barter time until letting him back inside her wouldn’t be quite so overwhelming), she still wants _more_. She’s achingly empty now, longing for girth to stretch her wide, his hips pressed flush against hers. But more than anything she just wants _him_ — wants to throw out every last expectation and rule and sense of decorum and lay claim to what her lips have already marked rightfully hers, wants his heart beating, trusting under her palm, wants to relish in the way it doesn’t turn to ash.

She longs to burn, break open into new skin at the places their bodies intertwine, and to start the next day free of her failures, ready to try again.

For a second chance.

Robin’s lips press warm, gentle against the underside of her jaw and Regina _yearns_ for him in all of his bright, blind optimism and unerring devotion. She is _done_ wasting the precious time they’ve gained back after so long apart (it was ten weeks, a blink in the span of a lifetime and a curse, but souls measure minutes against eternity), is determined to make the most of what she has — however messy, or dark, or imperfect it might be.

She is _alive_ , and with each thundering beat of her heart against her chest Regina remembers that she is not the most resilient for nothing.

Cognizance starts to creep in around the edges of her mind again, allows her fingers to drift, seek and search and explore the skin exposed along his collar, curl around to the back of his neck, nails dragging deliciously against his skin, scalp as she works her fingers into his hair once more, pulling him a little closer to her. Robin muffles a whimpered little moan just below her ear, fingers flexing against her thigh with both purpose and restraint, and _god_ , if that doesn’t go straight to her clit, has her pulsing, throbbing with need. He wants her, too — it would be obvious even if she couldn’t feel him hard against her hip — but he’s hesitating, hedging, more aware and deliberate than she’s been since long before they were ever out here.

Right, they’re outside.

She feels like that should be obvious — she can feel the bark against her back, still, the uneven jut of roots coming up from the ground, the soft, granular cushion of dirt against her legs — but she’d honestly mostly forgotten. Now, though, she does her best to bear in mind that wherever they are is not a granted guarantee that they will be alone or have privacy, so it’s with a deep, measured breath to try and bring herself back to center that Regina shifts her head away from him just slightly, eyes fluttering open against bright light as she tries to take in their surroundings.

They’re definitely not in the rose garden.

She’d miscalculated, it seems, had been thoroughly _distracted_ when she’d called upon her magic. They’re a little far away from the garden: the castle is still in plain view, practically right on top of them. Her mental map of the palace grounds is starting to fill in some of the blanks: the rose garden is tucked away on the southeast end of the estate, shaded in large part by the turret where Merlin had set up his study. From her view on the ground, Regina thinks they’re on the west side of the palace, the tall, wooden wall a familiar landmark wedged firmly in her mind.

A little… _too_ familiar.

She blinks rapidly, shifts against the tree slightly so she can twist a little, look up above her and — 

“Oh my _god_ ,” she gasps, pushing away from the tree lightning quick and disrupting Robin firmly from where he’d been curled against her. She ignores his plaintive _Regina, what —_ , scrambles fitfully to her feet, fingers digging, sifting through dirt as she struggles to get upright. She still hasn’t fully recovered from the severity of her orgasm, legs a little wobbly as she stumbles a few steps forward, but she doesn’t care, has to put some distance between her and oh god, _no_. “ _Please_ ,” she rasps, almost choking on her words as she wraps her arms around her middle and fuck, she is so fucking slick between her thighs, shit, shit, shit, “tell me you did not just fuck me against Merlin’s tree.”

Robin is unnervingly quiet for a far too long beat before venturing, “Um, well.”

“Oh god,” she breathes, eyes slipping shut as she squeezes herself tighter, thighs clamped together and oh god, oh god, oh god. “We — I can’t believe I just _came_ against —” She winces, suddenly acutely uncomfortable in her own skin before she’s whirling around, gaze fixed on the ground somewhere near Robin’s boots because she is _not_ looking at that infernal thing, not ever again. “How could you let me do that?”

“I didn’t _know_ ,” Robin defends, pushing himself to his feet at last. “We were a bit preoccupied when we first arrived, I wasn’t exactly taking in the change of scenery. Had a bit of a better view at that particular moment.”

“Do _not_ , Robin Locksley,” she warns, fingers flexing fitfully at her elbows.

“I’d like to point out,” he says carefully, and she watches as he takes one step toward her, and then another, “that the entire reason we’re out here is because you brought us here with magic. I didn’t choose this particular location.”

“I was aiming for the rose garden,” she hisses, snapping her head up to glare at him. “I’m sorry my magical navigational skills fall short when my boyfriend can’t keep his hands out — _off_ of me.”

He halts, just for a second before he’s arching an eyebrow at her, corner of his mouth quirking up in amusement and _fuck him_ , honestly, he’s insufferable. “If I recall,” he murmurs, moving toward her again, practically _sauntering_ and she’s squirming for entirely different reasons now, fuck him, fuck him, fuck him, “you were the one who pulled my hand beneath your dress, first.”

The first retort she has — that he was the one who started pushing her dress up to begin with — sticks, dies in the back of her throat. They could keep doing this, shift the blame back and forth for a while until they trace it back to whichever of them started it (him, it was absolutely him and his stupid, sweet lips on her bare shoulder), but it’d be a waste of time — a distraction from the issue at hand. Of course, the issue at hand is a distraction in and of itself; there’s renewed heat in Robin’s eyes as he closes the distance between them, pulling all of that simmering arousal _right_ back to the surface of her skin.

And then he slows to a stop in front of her, expression expectant, patient, but he’s still smirking, damn him, leaning into her with all of his heat and pine until he brushes against her ever so gently. The feel of him still hard, hot and wanting and waiting for her has the same flash of fantasy from earlier flit across her mind — Robin fisting his cock hard and fast and arching off of the bed with a gasp of her name and a _please, need you_ and fuck, she still wants him inside of her, no, no, _no_.

“Don’t change the subject,” she says shortly, but there’s no snap, no heat or malice behind it, her voice shaking a little around the edges. His expression doesn’t change, not in the slightest, and Regina has to _force_ herself to take a step back just to stand her ground. “The _point_ ,” she sniffs, whirling back around and stalking off down toward the south side of the palace, trusting that he’ll follow her, “is that this little… incident does absolutely nothing to help me make progress on what I was _supposed_ to be doing today, which is finding a way to free Merlin from the tree that _you just fucked me against_. How am I supposed to look him in the eye if I ever manage to accomplish that?” she stage-whispers over her shoulder, briefly catching his eye as he follows her around the south side of the castle.

“Oh, I don’t believe that,” he drawls, the barest hint of a laugh in his voice and she is _furious_ with him right now. “You never shy away from a direct confrontation, _Your Majesty_.”

“Are you telling me you wouldn’t be absolutely mortified,” she challenges, twirling on the spot to face him, “if he brought it up?”

“I believe he’d know it wasn’t intentional,” Robin argues, unperturbed. Regina huffs in indignation, throws her hands up in the air with a whirl of magic to clean the dirt from them, and turns back around, resuming her trek toward the garden. “Besides,” he adds, calling after her as he clearly jogs to keep up with her quicker pace, “it’s not as if we disrobed right in front of him, love.”

“Yeah, that’s easy for you to say,” she scoffs, veering left to take the direct path to the garden. “You weren’t the one who had an orgasm.”

“No,” he agrees with a sigh, and he’s slowing down a bit, she thinks, giving her a little more space, “and given your current ire, I’d wager the chances of my having one today are rapidly dwindling.”

“Don’t you mean another one?” she drawls, half-glancing at him over her shoulder.

“One by your hand,” he amends, sounding a bit put out, “rather than my own.”

And that… stings a little, if she’s being honest, digs right under her skin and worms its way down to pluck painfully at her heartstrings. He _misses_ her, even when he has her, and the reminder that she’s has done a rather atrocious job of managing her time since their arrival in Camelot has her swallowing hard, softening a little around the edges. Still, she needs time to burn off her indignation and embarrassment, needs the space to be a little irritated (at herself, mostly, for not having a better grasp on her magic regardless of Robin’s involvement, and it’s yet another thing in which she’s failed at here) and hope he understands that she’s not directing it _at_ him, exactly.

She’s always been rather horrible about losing face in front of others, bristles and barks and bites until she leaves marks, wounds, has people turning tail and bleeding. Robin hasn’t been on the receiving end of her venom in ages — not since before Snow cast the second Dark Curse to revive Storybrooke from the ether — and the comparison shrouds her heart in shadows, a barrier to keep her from the place where intentions are pure.

Regina has nothing left but good intentions these days, and behind her lie the stones paving the way to a hell she thinks may be inevitable.

In the middle of the path, Regina stops, and turns toward the light.

Robin eyes her cautiously as he closes the distance between them, surveying her as she stands akimbo at the edge of the path, waiting for him with an arched eyebrow. It’s only when he’s a few steps away that she offers up a reply, every bit Her Majesty in address. “Don’t be so dramatic,” she teases, lips twisting, fighting back a smile.

It works — Robin relaxes visibly as he comes to a stop in front of her, expression gone a bit soft, warm even as his eyes spark with knowing. “I’ll leave the theatrics to you, milady.”

She _tsk_ s in disapproval but grants him the smile anyway, coy and flirtatious over her shoulder as she turns back around, resumes moving toward the last bend in the path. “I’m not being dramatic,” she argues, encouraged when she hears him following behind, dirt and rock a soft, steady crunch beneath his boots. “I’m having a perfectly reasonable reaction to a situation in which _you_ would be equally mortified if he were human right now,” she reasons, rounding that last curve in the path into the garden. “Give me a little time to —”

And then she stops, dead in her tracks just a few feet into the rose garden, at the sight that greets her.

Spread out on a patch of grass just off the main path, tucked next to a trio of rose bushes, is a large, comfortable looking quilt. A pair of cloaks anchors down the lower edge, a caution against the wind, and it takes her a few extra seconds to recognize them as _theirs_ , thick velvet of rich red and forest green lying side by side. In one of the upper corners is a thick book, midnight blue with white lettering etched along the spine, though she can’t quite make out the title from this far away. And perched in the very last corner to keep the blanket in place is a large, round basket (willow, she thinks, maybe wicker, she’s not entirely sure), handles folded down around an abundance of sustenance sweet and savory alike: meats and cheeses from the kitchens; bread from the bakery in town; grapes from the vineyard; a jug of mead and a pair of goblets. There’s a waterskin somewhere in there as well, poking out from behind, and a sweet stash of chocolate bearing the crocus crest of Arendelle on its wrappings and oh, _oh_.

Robin had packed her a picnic.

His earlier pleas for her to take a break make so much more sense, now. Not that they _hadn’t_ , before, but they’s more weight to them, each yearning request and declaration more selfless, loving. Oh he wants her, certainly, but _this_ — this had been entirely about her. He’d taken the time to pull together something nice for her, rich and decadent and indulgent, would only have been granted the pleasure of her company as a perk to the whole affair, and every stone upon Robin’s path of good intentions leads back to a heart most pure.

He is always opening doors, for her.

“Give you a little time to?” he prompts quietly, coming up behind her at last. But Regina has lost the rest of her ire, can’t be bothered to remember the rest of that thought or turn around to face him just yet. Upon her second perusal of the picnic her gaze lands upon a small clutch of daisies bundled together near the book, and she inhales sharply at the sight, eyes stinging, watering in silent reply.

Without an answer, Robin slowly wraps his arms around her from behind, front pressed to her back and hands settling near her belly. Regina is the one to reach up, lace their fingers together, and the very second she leans back into him he’s curling in close, lips dropping another warm, grazing kiss to her bare shoulder. “You know,” she chuckles, bitter and warm and thick with wetness, “there are days when I really don’t know what the hell I ever did to deserve you.”

“Hey, now,” he chastises quickly, nudging her ear with his nose, “none of that. It’s just a picnic.”

She falters a little at that, nearly bites her lip but refrains, slowly turns around in his arms instead to look him in the eyes. “No,” she disagrees, raw and quiet, “it’s not. My life is just… one crisis after another,” she clips, the last few words bitten out one at a time through gritted teeth, “and you always go out of your way to make things seem normal when they’re anything but. To make… _not just a picnic_ ,” she says, pointedly glancing sidelong at his little arrangement, “seem like something ordinary for me.”

Something flickers, clashes in his eyes at that — he’s struggling against saying something, she thinks, trying to choose which reaction to land on — but in the end he bestows her with nothing but the brightest blue, smile warm and soft. “There is nothing at all ordinary,” he murmurs, curling his hands around to the small of her back as he leans in close, touches his forehead to hers, “about my love for you, Regina Mills.”

Her whole face crinkles into a smile, equal parts bemused and exasperated. “And you,” she laughs, feeling much, much lighter as she nuzzles her nose against his, “just proved my point.”

Robin barks out a laugh in return, busses a kiss to her lips before pulling back and moving a hand up to cradle her jaw, thumb sweeping soothingly across her cheek. “If I concede,” he proposes, nodding toward the picnic, “will you join me?”

She chooses now to tease her lower lip between her teeth, smirking at him all the while. “Perhaps,” she quips, only half suppressing another laugh at the way he rolls his eyes. But it’s her turn, she thinks, to give a little, so she side-steps out of his embrace, reaches down for his hand and squeezes gently in reply. “Lead the way.”

They’re not all that far from the little patch of paradise he’d arranged for them, but Robin leads all the same, stays a good two or three steps in front of her as he makes their way across the rose garden. And that’s… fine, yes, that’s good, it affords her the opportunity to drink him in a little more properly than she’s been able to all day. Camelot’s attire suits him in most of the same ways his Enchanted Forest wardrobe did, limited selections and all, but there’s something… different about the way he carries himself in these clothes, the way he presents himself to company. She wonders, idly, if maybe the slight increase in the level of formality is what does it for her — not that _he’s_ more formal, but the opposite.

She knows better than anyone what’s hidden beneath those clothes, and, well.

At the end of the day, Regina Mills _does_ have a type.

Of course now she’s wildly distracted, eyes roving his figure as she takes in the slightly looser shirt, the way his tunic frames his torso and the clinging material of his pants, the way those knee-high boots hug his calves _just so_. Shamelessly she lets her gaze flick up, finds herself genuinely disappointed at the way the bottom of the tunic covers the curve of his ass, obscuring what she _knows_ is otherwise a pretty spectacular view. And then her eyes travel, fall down to where their hands are clasped together, and it’s with a twist in her belly that Regina remembers those fingers had been inside of her, only moments ago.

And, well, there’s no harm, she tells herself, in getting a bit of a head start on round two.

He releases her hand once they reach the blanket, kneels down with a groan and shifts position, making to sit down and _there’s_ the view she likes so much, firm curves accentuated by angles, a damn near perfect specimen to behold. That’s all it takes, really, for her to follow with less than pure intentions, and he’s barely turned around to prop himself up on his hands before she’s crawling over him, bracing a leg on either side of him and startling him into lying down with a chuckled _oomph_. “Hi,” she greets, breathy and warm and she knows, she _knows_ she’s grinning like an absolute idiot but she is out of cares to give today, doesn’t have a single one left to spare.

“Hi,” he laughs, matching her smile with ease, but there’s something more there, too, an uncertainty behind all of that burning curiosity that has her leaning in close, chest to chest. She doesn’t hesitate, leans in to press a kiss to the corner of his mouth, encouraged by the way he sucks in a breath at the contact, and when her lips shift sideways just enough his whole body comes _alive_ under her kiss, breath in his lungs as he braces himself (and there’s a ghost beneath that, too, the memory of a curse bleeding out into the atmosphere and marking her his salvation).

She kisses him a little harder, arms bracketing his head as she arches, hovers over him, has him breathing harshly through it and reaching for her to find purchase. He settles a hand at her back, another sinks into her hair, fingers tangling themselves between carefully curled, luscious locks and fuck, she wants him to _ruin_ her.

(A savior, she is not.)

Regina pulls back, not even long enough for half a breath before she’s seeking another kiss, bruising, sucking another, and another and Robin’s arms _curl_ around her, fingers clutching just a little tighter. It’s only when she’s about to slip her tongue past the seam of his lips — when she rolls her hips against him with gentle but firm purpose — that he even seems capable of doing anything other than following _her_ lead, pulls his lips away and off to the side with a gasping breath and honest-to-god _shudders_ beneath her as she drags her lips across his cheek, warm and wet and slow. “Regina,” he breathes, voice low and laced with arousal. “Here?”

(What _Guinevere_ doesn’t know, Regina decides, won’t hurt her, either.)

“Here,” she affirms, teeth tugging playfully at his earlobe and glittering into a smile at the way he jolts, near-bucks beneath her.

“This doesn’t — _oh_ ,” he chokes out, neck straining as she sucks a hot kiss along the column, striving to color a mark to the surface. She smiles against his skin, eyes focused on the way he tries, fails to swallow hard and only manages to sound strangled when he makes another attempt to speak. “This doesn’t exactly afford us the same privacy the study did,” he points out.

Her lips twist, smirk as she lifts her face from his neck to look him in the eyes. “Neither did the tree,” she counters, “but anyone who would seek us out is otherwise occupied for the rest of the afternoon,” she reminds him.

Her heart flutters at the way surprise blossoms onto his face, somehow managing to convey bewilderment and desire and so. much. fucking adoration for her all at once, _god_. “‘m not complaining,” he murmurs, tucking her hair behind her ear as he shifts ever so slightly beneath her and yes, _yes_ , good, he’s hard between her thighs again, just the way she’s been wanting all afternoon. “It’s just… a bit more reckless than I’d expect, from you.”

Regina quirks an eyebrow at him. “What, my earlier abandon wasn’t enough of an appetizer for you?”

“I didn’t say _that_.”

“Well,” she muses, leaning in to graze her lips against his as a laugh bubbles, hovers around the edges of her throat, “perhaps you’re rubbing off on me.”

His chest stiffens, spasms with the near-success of stifling a laugh at the double entendre, but he’s pulling back to look at her mere seconds later, expression schooled into something mock-serious. “I _beg_ your pardon,” he drawls, “but I am not reckless. I always have an exit plan, thank you very much.”

“Really?” she hums back, arching up and over to rest her forehead against his, bracing herself up on her arms once more. “Do you happen to have an exit plan for this particular little scenario?”

And at that, Robin finally arches up to meet her, hand cradling her head close, tight against him as he leans in, lips hovering the space of a breath away. “What do you think I brought the cloaks for?”

She’s left grinning into the kiss he steals, laughter buzzing against his lips (it is not a giggle, she does not _giggle_ ) as he sits back up, tugs her more firmly into his lap and pulls her flush against him, forcing her hands to find purchase on his shoulders. It’s not ideal — her dress is too long to allow her to straddle him properly, won’t allow her to grind against him the way she really wants to — but it’s still _close_ , overwarm in the afternoon sun even in partially-shaded patch of paradise they’ve claimed. Robin is unperturbed, merely cards and curls and clutches his fingers in her hair as he kisses and kisses and kisses, skims his hand along the expanse of her back up and down and across again, fingers tracing over her spine, skipping, skittering along the ridges of her zipper, toying, teasing.

Regina arches just out of his touch and breaks the kiss, lips twisting into a smile at the way he moans, whines his complaint. Her hands slip, fall down to the buckles fastening the front of his tunic together, fingers working deftly, quickly to undo them, one at a time. “You have no idea how badly I’ve wanted you out of this fucking thing,” she mutters, dropping her head a little so he can pepper kisses across her collarbone. “Keeps getting in my way.”

“Ah,” he hums against her skin, lips lingering, buzzing near her shoulder where the fabric clings tight. “We both know how much Her Majesty doesn’t like that.”

“No, she doesn’t,” Regina says primly, unfastening the last buckle. She shifts, sits back to give herself room to reach down and fumble with the hem at the bottom of the tunic. It proves to be more difficult than she’d really anticipated: it doesn’t have the same ease of divestment of a vest or waistcoat, needs to be pulled up and over. But the damn thing is _leather_ and uncooperative and not at all the stiffness she’s searching for, so it’s after a good half moment of struggling that Regina leans back with a huff, fingers curling into his collar. “She also has a deft hand when it comes to magic,” she says, quirking an eyebrow at him, and it’s as much flirting as it is asking for permission.

“That she does,” Robin chuckles, brushing hair off of her brow, “though whether she always uses it appropriately is another matter entirely.”

Her eyes narrow, lips pursing as she fights a smile, but her irritation is mild and Robin had been right, really, in his assessment earlier. Regardless of the shoes she steps into, Regina Mills _does not_ back down, so it’s with dangerous delight in her eyes that she rises to the challenge — shifts up and back and leans back in, shoves at his chest with just enough force to have him falling back once more. The corner of her mouth twitches up as she closes her eyes, just briefly, just long enough to summon shimmer and spell from her veins and engulf them both in a cloud of purple smoke.

By the time his back hits the blanket again, they’ve both been divested of their shoes, Robin stripped down to his underwear and that deliciously loose linen shirt. “I think sex in the host queen’s rose garden,” she murmurs, unable to keep the heat out of her voice, “is well beyond appropriate.” She reaches for the hem of his shirt and rucks it up an inch or two, fingertips brushing against the soft skin of his belly. Robin sucks in a breath at that, tenses and relaxes under her touch all at once, and the soft little moan that puffs out of him when she ducks down, presses a wet, warm kiss to the newly exposed skin has her smiling at long last, pleased.

He wants her lower, she knows, wants her to pull his cock out into the warm summer air and sink her mouth down over him. And the thought _is_ appealing, has her mouth watering and her clit pulsing with increasing arousal, but later, she decides, another raincheck for them to cash. For now, she’s content to tease _just_ a little longer, pushes his shirt up inch by agonizing inch and lets her lips trace the trail her fingertips leave behind. His breathing is deeper, heavier by the time she reaches the place his heart resides, eyelashes fluttering in the shifting sunlight and oh, _oh_ , god _damn_ he’s almost stupidly attractive like this — warm and solid, half-naked and warm and entirely at her mercy and _fuck_ teasing, she just wants _him_.

“ _Off_ ,” she all but growls, shoving, pulling, yanking at his shirt until he follows her lead and lifts up just enough for her to tug it up and over his head, sleeves turned inside-out in her lack of care. Blindly, she tosses it aside in the general direction of where she thinks her magic had lumped the rest of their clothes — near the cloaks, she thinks, but she doesn’t know, doesn’t care, can’t be bothered to spare a glance even for a second.

Robin is reaching for her before she can dive back down, arching up halfway to meet her and punching a haphazard, off-center kiss to her mouth, hands curling around her waist. It’s all she can do to cup his face in her hands, draw a half-breath before he’s bestowing another bruising kiss, hands smoothing up along her back. A third kiss to charm, slow and simmering with heat as his fingers find the zipper of her dress and pull down, down as he sits up the rest of the way. The movement has her slipping into his lap again and oh, _oh_ , oh fuck, she can really _feel_ him now, the outline of his cock through his underwear pressed right up against where her sex is wet, throbbing and aching to be filled. But it’s not enough, won’t even be enough even with him naked and bare beneath her if she doesn’t get this goddamn dress off — 

“ _Finally_ ,” Robin breathes as he breaks the kiss, pulling the dress down, off of her shoulders now that he has near-unfettered access with the zipper undone. Regina lets her hands slip down, settle over his chest as she pulls back, smiling at the strong, steady beat beneath her palm as he nuzzles briefly against the swell of her breasts. “ _God_ , darling, c’mere,” he mutters, darting up to smack a sweet kiss against the underside of her jaw. She smiles, chuckles and arches against him to invite another kiss to her neck before he returns his attention to her dress.

And he… tries, she thinks, to be quick about it, seems to be as eager and done with waiting as she is, but he gets a little distracted along the way. Helps her tug her arms out of the sleeves, shimmy the bodice of the dress down to her waist, hips and then his mouth is on her breast, lips closing, sucking around her nipple and — “ _Yes_ ,” she hisses, sinking both hands into his hair to keep him there for a spell and all right, maybe she’s a little distracted too. She can hardly be blamed, though, not when this is what she’d wanted in the study earlier and fuck timing, honestly, she is _claiming_ what she wants, possessive and pure.

Robin savors her for those long, few moments, lips sucking, pulling, teeth nipping as he lavishes attention upon one breast, then the other. She can suffer the distraction a little longer, she supposes, eyes slipping shut as she sighs happily, runs her fingers through his hair, grazes, scratches, clutches. For a moment she just lets herself… drift, bathed in sunlight and blossoming bright in Robin’s arms, and while the world swirls, spins around her, Regina loses herself in the eye of his storm, calm and quiet and relaxed.

Everything about his love feels extraordinary, and for a few blinding, blissful moments, she finds herself in the embrace of promises unspoken — the future of their story yet untold.

_Damn_ , he’s good.

It’s only a few moments more before he’s recentering her focus, lips pulling away from her breasts with a parting, smacking kiss. “Up,” he prompts, low and ragged. She whines, plaintive and wanting when he shifts beneath her, causing her to lose the solid warmth of his cock pressed against her sex through a single layer. But Robin just tugs meaningfully at where her dress has bunched up around her waist, still caught, so it’s with only the slightest reluctance that Regina releases her hold on him and shifts back out of his lap to shimmy out of warm, thick red velvet. She’s a little less careless this time around, actually glances at the rapidly growing pile of clothing to aim before she half-tosses, half-drapes the dress over the top.

When her gaze shifts back to Robin, she finds that he’s matched her in a final removal, and she can’t quite help the way she freezes, stares as her heart sticks in her throat at the sight of him. He’s sprawled out on the blanket a bit more, leaning back to rest his weight on his elbows, and he is naked and bare and _gloriously_ on display for her, erect and thick and so god damn inviting, fuck. She’s crawling forward before she can second-guess herself, guides him into lying back down as she finally, _finally_ straddles him properly, a leg anchored on either side of his hips. Regina curls down close, presses her chest against his and keeps herself propped up on her arms just enough to keep him in focus, give him room to breathe.

And then the head of his cock is brushing, dragging through her still-slick folds, and Regina thinks Robin forgets _how_. His hands jerk up, halt and hover over her ribs, fingertips just barely brushing against her skin and it is taking every ounce of self-control he has left, she thinks, not to reach, grab and hold. “Don’t tease,” he whispers, and there is something _desperate_ in it, aching and longing.

“Oh, I wouldn’t _dream_ of it,” she murmurs, amusement lacing her tone even though she’s in agreement. Just to prove her point she rises up, just enough for her hips to find the right angle to rub the head of his cock against her opening, and he’s barely halfway reaching for her, fingertips skittering across her ribs, seeking to thread, sink into her hair once more when she envelops him, quick and wet, before sinking all the way down. His touch is like a brand _burning_ its way across her skin as he grabs hold of her, clutches tight, and she can _feel_ his low, full gasp all the way down in her sex as she stretches snug around him and yes, _yes_ , this is exactly what she wanted in the study earlier, the warm full girth of him filling her and touching the places she’s needed him most.

It feels like an eternity, the only sounds in her ears the thrumming of her heart and his breathing, harsh pants that send puffs of warm air across her skin and speak volumes of how much he’s holding himself back, but the reality is only moments where she basks in the pleasant burn of her body adjusting to his again. She lifts a hand and lightly traces his jaw, the stubble of that day’s beard growth pricking at her fingers. His eyes follow the curve of her smile when she reaches the dimple in his chin, her thumb fitting perfectly in that little hollow, but when she lifts up she instantly mourns the loss of him inside her.

Well, that simply won’t do.

As she sinks back down, just by half, Robin comes back to himself, tearing his eyes from her mouth and looking up at her with less desperation and more fire. In a flash his hips rise to meet hers, prompting a small _oh!_ to tumble from her lips as the force of their meeting sends a ripple of pleasure all the way down to her toes. “I _said_ ,” he murmurs, fingers dragging down in tandem through long locks, along her side to settle down at her hip, “don’t tease.”

“I’m _not_ ,” she argues, bucking her hips against him sharply and relishing in the way his cock twitches, throbs inside of her in response. She grips his chin for a second, just gently, just to keep his focus strictly on her, before reaching up to brush some of his hair off his brow. “If anything, I’m being downright generous.”

“Really?” he drawls, fingers twirling the ends of her hair, dipping down to skim — _tease_ over the curve of her ass. It’s hard not to gravitate toward him when he touches her like this, hard not to push back into the hand decidedly not grabbing her ass, hard not to arch toward his fingers and lips and tongue when he’s so tantalizingly close to her breasts still and _fuck_ him, honestly, he’s the one still doing all the teasing here.

“Yes,” she quips, doing her best to sound light and prim and teasing but fuck, she can’t help the way her sex flutters around in him aching anticipation, _focus, Mills_. She plants a palm flat on the ground on either side of his head, shifts until she’s really, truly properly seated on his cock, warm and deliciously snug. Regina smiles again as she leans over him, hair falling into sweeping curtains around his face, prompting his hands to shift, settle at the small of her back. “You’re getting a little preview of tonight.”

His eyes spark, flicker the way they usually do when they fall into easy banter, but she doesn’t give him a chance to even _begin_ to form a reply, just lifts her hips up and snaps them back down _hard_ , sharp and quick the way she’d wanted him to fuck her on the table in the study earlier and fuck, fuck, _yes_ , she’s barely begun and she can already feel that little wave of pleasure ripping back up her legs, curling at the base of her spine. Another rock of her hips, sharper still, and another that damn near has Robin’s eyes rolling back in his head. “Unfair,” he gasps, tips of his fingers pressing firmly into the small of her back. “You’re cheating.”

“Am I?” she muses, slowing the rocking of her hips to something smoother, more sensual.

“Yes,” he hisses, arching slightly beneath her to the point of their lips hovering a breath apart. “I trust you with one of my fantasies and now you’re just using it to — _fuck_ ,” he chokes out, hands gripping her waist to hold her in place when she rocks against him in a way that apparently really, _really_ works for him.

She can’t help the way her smile turns a little smug at how quickly he’s starting to fall apart beneath her, but where turnabout is fair play, Regina also intends to make the most of the time they have together — to savor _him_ as he breaks open for _her_. “I’m _trying_ ,” she laughs, using her hands to push herself up and away from his chest so she’s sitting up straight, “to fulfill it. Or does this,” she murmurs, reaching up to stroke, squeeze both breasts and pinch, twist a nipple, “not quite live up to that vision of yours?”

“Exceeds it,” he breathes, sweeping his thumbs up and along her hip bones in encouragement as she rolls her hips. “God, darling, you’re _so_ tight like this, always feels so good after you’ve come.”

“Tell me about it,” she sighs, happy and warm as she rides him, hips undulating rhythmically as she takes him inside of her again, and again and god, fuck. Every sensation is amplified by the lingering buzz of her earlier orgasm — the tickle of his leg hair against her calves, the slick slide of her come between their thighs — but it’s even better than usual this time: for every way he stretches her open she tightens around him more, practically moulds her sex around his cock as every last muscle flutters, clenches and clutches him close. She can still feel the edging twist of heightened arousal lingering over her g-spot with every stroke, and even though it’s not enough — not the right angle, not enough concentrated pressure, nowhere near enough friction against her clit — it still _feels_ good, like the stoking of embers before a fire comes roaring back to life.

For the most part, Robin seems content to let her take the lead — to play the game and let her fulfill the desires they share. His hips rock to counter every movement of hers but it’s gentle, slow and easy and guided, accented by each sweep of his thumbs over her hips. It helps, that, the loose grip he has on her to help keep her in place, but she’s still a little off-kilter from earlier — still slightly sleep-deprived and sore and begrudgingly not as young or agile as she used to be. She won’t be able to maintain a full upright position for all that long, not without a reprieve or better balance or — 

His hands shift, just then, trail up over her hips, smooth over the soft skin of her belly and for a moment her movements falter, slow down to small, sensual rollings of her hips as she watches him touch her. It’s impossible not to suck in a breath, to fight against the twist in her belly as he maps over every plane, palms cupping the underside of her breasts with reverence. But this — this is so, so easy to give into, to lean into the way he knows what she needs, a gentle guidance to help her maintain control. Regina sighs, heavy and happy and full, rests a hand over his where he’s started to massage, squeeze affectionately, and as her eyes flutter shut she finds it’s easy to bask in the waning sunlight as it showers them with warmth. Her free hand skitters up along her neck, fingers looping around to dig, drag and scratch their way through her hair at the base of her skull and fuck, _god_ she is so glad she didn’t wait to do this.

Every stroke of her sex over his cock is like catching sparks, a gradual build of steady friction that has his hips picking up pace just enough to throw her off balance a little. She manages to catch herself, isn’t quite jarred out of the moment entirely, but the angle’s definitely shifted and oh, oh, that’s —

“Fuck,” she chokes out around a whimper, hand spasming, clenching over his own. She can really _feel_ him like this, can feel all of his girth and the way it stretches her wide, can feel _just_ how hard he is as the edges of her sex drag, catch over every last rippling vein in his cock with every pass. _Most_ of all she can feel the way the slight shift has angled his cock to drag deliciously perfect along the upper wall of her sex — a hard, firm, warm pressure that sets off a series of sparks against her still overly-sensitive g-spot. _Fuck_ , she may actually be able to come just from this again, maybe with just the barest of touches against her clit once she’s close enough and shit, shit, shit, she is nowhere near prepared for an orgasm of that magnitude again, doesn’t want the force of it to push him out of her, particularly in such a precarious position.

But Robin is there — he’s always, always there, knows what she needs, wants even as she’s realizing it herself. “Don’t hold back,” he says, and it’s almost, ironically, a whisper, but there’s something insistent in his voice, a fierce burn behind his irises that has her clit throbbing and her belly twisting. “We’re alone, just… _be_ with me,” he breathes, and it’s not begging or pleading but something akin, adjacent. 

This time when she feels the twist it winds its way up, belly to chest to throat, fueled by such ache that for a minute words fail her. Even when he’s missing, longing for her Robin cannot ever even come close to being malcontent, just leans into light and love and reaches out along the tether that binds their souls together until she’s ready to emerge from the shadows.

To be just shy of being brave enough, and in this moment — in every one that has come before and will follow after, in every one that has made its mark of twenty-three like ink spattered sporadically across eternity’s pages — Regina knows the one thing she absolutely must: she _loves_ him, with every black, battered, beating piece of her heart.

She alone is master of her time.

On impulse she falls forward, jostles his hands away from her breasts as she leans in close. It has her lifting off of his cock again, just by half, but then her breasts come up level with his face, lower to his lips as he sucks a nipple into his mouth, arms wrapping, hands skimming from shoulderblades down her spine to settle at the small of her back once more. And fuck, if that doesn’t feel good, has her senses overwhelmed and her mind blanking briefly as she fights for purchase, palms smacking hard against the ground, fingers fisting into the quilt. She can feel him _everywhere_ , inside of her and all around her and pressed, nuzzling against her skin, top to bottom and everywhere in between and if this, _this_ is the eye of Robin’s storm it is _devastating_.

A groan punches out of her as he shifts to the other breast, nipple, every caress, every suck and kiss and nip surprisingly gentle all things considered. Regina can’t quite help the way she buckles against the persistent stimulation, shoulders crumpling forward as she shudders, shivers into him, sex sinking back down his cock all the way to the hilt. Robin tenses beneath her once he’s fully sheathed again, clearly feeling the rippling impact of all of that delicious over-stimulation, and as her face comes level with his again she feels _fire_ flare up in her chest at the way his mouth falls open and his chin trembles in near-ecstasy.

Together, she thinks, their bones could form ruins of their own.

He’s too tempting like this, too gorgeous and vulnerable and desperate for her — the sweetest of sins Regina is all too happy to take part in, a bite she simply has to taste. It’s her turn to devour, savor as she ducks down for a hot, smart kiss to claim him. His hips pivot up in reply, a sudden, sharp driving of his cock deeper into her sex that leaves her no other option other than to break the kiss with a shuddering gasp of her own.

And that’s it, she’s done, there’s no more timing or pacing or patience that she’s willing to let dictate their release, so she shifts, rests her weight on him more fully and reaches out with too-eager hands to curl around, cradle the back of his head closer to her. Robin leans into her with eases, arches slightly and claims a quick, sweet kiss as she fucks against him fervently, picking up pace and still somehow trying, miserably, to stay steady. But then his hands are drifting, dipping lower, finally coming to rest, cup, grab the curve of her ass properly, and it only takes two strokes of her sex over his cock for her to realize he needs more, wants — 

_Don’t hold back_ , he’d pleaded, and she has made their bed of roses, surrounded by stone underneath a summer sun.

Where she finds the reserves of energy to fuel her fire, she really has no idea, but she’s fucking against him in earnest in an instant, switching the steady strokes to more of a grind, hard and fast and sharp. He practically falls apart underneath her, grips her ass hard for purchase as he tenses, trembles and huffs out moans like they’re being gutted from him, soft sounds surrounded by hardened edges. It does nothing but spur her on, has her fucking faster, smiling brighter with every kiss that he punches, bites, soothes against her lips. “Regina,” he chokes out, breath coming out sharper, stilted and shallow. “Regina, I —”

“I know,” she says, leaning in for one more searing kiss before she lets her lips fall, drag to the corner of his mouth, hover lightly over his cheek. The breath he lets out against her skin sounds almost relieved, less like he’s been waiting and more like he’s been searching, trying to find home and the notion has her heart fluttering, each beat rippling out to mingle, bleed into the current of pleasure thrumming through her veins. She presses herself as close to him as she can, threads her fingers through his hair and drops her lips to his shoulder, hips pivoting almost automatically at this point. One of his hands reaches up, cradles the back of her head as his lips press warm against her temple and _god_ , Robin was right, there is _nothing_ at all ordinary about the way he loves her.

Her life is worth something, to him.

Heart fit to burst, she lets her eyes slip shut to lose herself in the moment a little more, focuses on the warmth of his skin pressed right up against hers, the pressing pinch-drag of her nipples catching against wiry chest hair and the damp, heavy heat of his breath against her brow. For a moment it’s as if they’re in the study all over again, sun somehow pulling sweat to the surface of their skin, but where it’d felt trapped before it flows freely now, dewing across collarbones and slithering down spines, clinging to their necks and seeping into hair at the nape. It’s everything she would’ve wanted in their chambers tonight and yet somehow _more_ , love burning bright under the spotlight of the sun.

And she loves him, loves him, loves him.

The rocking of her hips becomes a little more wild, messy, but Robin matches her even deep in the throes of passion, listens and observes and plays partner to a dance that leaves their souls intertwined. His grip on her ass becomes stronger, more firm, lips more tense against her brow, but it’s all to his advantage as he starts to meet each of her thrusts with damn near perfectly timed ones of his own, cock pistoning back in every time she starts to lift, drag away and _mmm-fuck_ that’s good, a steady beat against her drum that has her seeing stars behind her eyes with every dizzying vibration. It’s not quite what she’d been after before — not the same broad pressure against her g-spot that spreads out across her skin — but it’s enough to have her toes curling with the familiarity of an impending orgasm closing in on her, looming large around the edges.

She can come like this, too, around a cock full and deep and _hard_ , but it’s only when she pulls herself back a bit, lifts her face from his neck and shoulder and lets her eyes flutter open that she gets that last little spark she really needs. It’s the slightest of shifts but her clit bears the full force of it, catches against hair and drags against his pelvis just right until it’s practically _throbbing_ , has her hips bucking erratically in order to chase the sensation and build. If she was earnest before it’s nothing compared to now: she grinds her hips faster, leans into his body a little more to increase the pressure, friction against her clit and oh, oh _god_ she can feel it all the way in the back of her belly, a wave building toward a crest, preparing to fall.

Robin has the good sense to loosen his grip on her, let her chase and lead him to follow, fall and Regina grips his chest hard, eyes half-lidded as her breath shakes, rattles its way up out of her lungs. She’s barely there for more than a few seconds before she’s using his chest for leverage to push herself up, shoulders shaking as her elbow locks to keep herself upright and god, fuck, _yes_ , she can’t help but hiss the word through gritted teeth. This angle is even better, makes her feel even more full and amplifies all that delicious friction against her clit, and if the way Robin tosses his head back against the quilt with a guttural groan and stings his nails into her skin is anything to go by it’s doing _wonders_ for him, too.

She chases the scintillating sensation, wanting more, wanting to crash, drown in all that he is, so she moves the hand on his chest down, just a few inches, drags the ridges in her palm across every curve and plane of muscle. This time the shift in angle leaves her heart lodged in her throat, blood pounding her ears at the way he sinks in just a little bit deeper, and the pressure that comes from feeling full is enough to have her clenching around him, thighs trembling in anticipation. She pivots, hips practically pistoning rapid-fire as every ripple of pleasure gathers behind the wave about to crest low in her belly, friction like a fire against her clit and oh, _oh_ , he’s still hard, hasn’t come yet, is still throbbing and aching and holding off for her and fuck, she’s so close, _right_ fucking there — 

Her hand slips down, plants and anchors hard against his belly as she bucks against him once, twice oh god oh god oh god fuck that’s perfect, that’s “— _yes, right there_ ,” she says, practically pleading even though she’s the one in control. She grinds down _hard_ , shoulders tense as she climbs, crests and — “Robin — _Robin_!” she gasps, high and sharp and _keening_. His nails drag down her breast, fingers pinching, pulling and twisting at her nipples to zing extra little sparks of pleasure through her as her belly clenches and her sex squeezes tight around his cock, her clit pulsing and body shaking and coming is like creating constellations, stars sweeping dust across a summer sky.

She can barely keep herself upright through it, shudders and trembles into collapsing against his chest again, his cock still hard and buried deep inside of her. Her whole body feels ten times heavier than it did a minute ago, limbs a dead weight as she clings to him, eyes slipping shut. Her hair sweeps to one side, falls over her shoulder as she tucks her face against his neck but Robin’s storm surrounds her, hand gripping her ass, fingers sinking into her hair. His breath is hot and damp against her cheek as his lips drag, hover, _fuck, darling_ a harsh whisper delivered against her skin. Regina draws a breath, deep and somehow still too-hollow and — 

— and she’s beneath him before she can do more than that, still joined and full and open for him, and her whole body _shivers_ at the way his hands caress her skin, fingertips tracing trails through slick along the back of her thighs as he moves to hook her leg around his waist. It takes her a few seconds — time measured by the gentle sweeping of his thumb over the curve of her cheek — to focus enough to meet his eyes, still a little punch-drunk as she is from coming again, but when she does it’s to the brightest of blues bearing a love far too pure to be bestowed upon her.

Robin looks at her like she’s the sun, and beneath him Regina _burns_.

She’s arching up to press a firm, too-eager kiss to his lips, too far gone to be cognizant or careful of anything else. He matches her easily, slows it to something sweeter, more sensual as his hand falls from her hair, finds purchase on the ground. Breath punches out of her chest as they break apart, shaking and shallow and sharp before she’s capturing his lips with her own once more; another as her hand skims up the length of his arm over every curve of muscle and again, again and his hips are rolling forward slowly and again, again fuck fuck god _yes_ — 

“ _Robin_ ,” she gasps, gritty and raw as her head falls back against the ground, neck arching, exposed for him and god _damn_ , she doesn’t have it in her to come again but _fuck_ if this doesn’t feel good. It’s so much of what she’s wanted with him all day, pieces coming together in flashes: the heavy heat and weight of him pressed against her; the aching, stretching fullness inside; the tight, firm press of his hips against hers holding promise of _more_. Regina seeks that now, chases it with abandon and curls a hand up and around to grip his shoulder, and the muffled moan Robin tries to stifle spills forth as his arm shakes, elbow buckling and bringing him fully flush against her.

Everything blurs around the edges for a few minutes after that, has a haze settling around the edges of her vision and mind and senses as she loses herself to drowning beneath him. There are fragments, fissures of sharp clarity in fractions of seconds: lips bussing, dragging kisses along the column of her throat; the concentrated, just shy of desperate rolling of his hips slowly picking up pace as he fucks her; the sporadic jolts of pleasure rippling up through her with every particularly hard thrust, and the inevitable tense throbbing of his cock inside of her sex as he chases, climbs his way toward coming.

Yet even as she fades, floats, she becomes more aware of their surroundings outside of Robin’s surging storm. It’s the heat she notices first, between the thick quilt at her back and the weight of him on top of her, the slow, simmering shine of the sun settling over their skin until they’re sweating all over — at every point of contact, along every long limb, and every empty space between. But her senses blossom as she reaches out, fingers fisting blades of grass at the edges of the quilt with every slowed, _hard_ snap of his hips. Perfume permeates the air, a pleasant aroma the piques her interest and pulls her focus, and the laugh that bubbles up out of her honestly cannot be helped.

No one could accuse her of not stopping to smell the roses.

It’s her laugh that has his hips slowing, his head lifting as he pulls back just far enough to look her in the eyes, eyebrow quirked in curiosity even though he’s clearly put out at having his rhythm thrown off with how close he is to coming. Regina just shakes her head, leans up and in a little to dart a sweet kiss to his lips, the tip of his nose. “I just… love you, that’s all,” she murmurs, hands reaching up to curl around, skim down the back of his arms.

Her heart flips at the way his smile turns a little crooked, touched, chest twisting when he offers up no reply, seemingly speechless and _oh_ , she is not at all prepared for the way he pulls back, just enough to straighten up, reaches out and cups her face in his hands. The new angle has his cock stretching her just that little bit more as he sinks in deep. Regina swallows hard, feels the pleasant burn spread out over her skin like fissures fraying the end of every nerve, and all it takes is her digging a heel into the small of his back for him to resume the rolling of his hips with increased intensity. He’s not quite as close as he was a minute ago but he’s not far off, she can tell, can feel the way his muscles grow tense and tight again under touch, can see the rapid rise-fall of his stomach as his breath comes quicker. He’s impossibly hard inside of her, throbbing cock aching and desperate and matching every wild, greedy pulse of her clit god, she _cannot_ come again.

It takes all of her focus for her to keep her eyes locked with Robin’s, to lean into the way he’s cupping her face in his hands and breathe a bridge across the great divide. “Come for me,” she says, neither request nor command, wets her lips at the sudden dryness that’s coating her throat.

The immediacy with which his hips buck against hers in sharp reply is enough of an acquiescence for her. His eyes grow heavy, lidded as he thrusts into her, hard and steady and deep and _fuck_ if that doesn’t have arousal bleeding all through her belly, heat coiling behind her breasts, nipples sparked with stimulation and focus, _focus_. Regina sighs, sharp and happy and warm, her hands shifting, skimming to sink into his hair again and it’s too much, has a heavy groan huffing out of his chest and his hips snapping sharp, sudden. In the blink of an eye he’s grabbed hold of her again, hands gripping hers hard as he slots their fingers together and presses down, effectively pinning her against the quilt-covered garden ground.

(And she is safe here, with him.)

It’s Robin’s turn to climb the crest of his own wave, to fuck waiting and timing and _be with her_ in the here, now. His hips piston rapid-fire in echo to her earlier abandon, cause a twisted kind of pleasure-pain radiating through her her belly, down her legs and up along her spine. Each thrust is _deep_ , has her toes curling against his calves and leaves her downright whimpering at the thrumming vibrations wracking her body but it’s nothing, _nothing_ compared to the way he gasps above her, hands squeezing hers painfully tight for purchase. “Close,” he says, nearly stumbling over the word. “Fuck, Regina, so close.”

She doesn’t give it a second thought, just digs her nails into his knuckles and arches her back off the quilt in answer to his call, hips bucking up to keep him pressed inside all the way to the hilt. It’s more of a surprise than she thinks either of them were expecting, has a gasp choking out of him, his eyes squeezing shut, his hips thrusting forward _hard_ , the hardest yet and _yes_ , fuck, god, she can feel the force of it all the way at the bottom of her throat. Harder still and she is _vibrating_ at the seams, harder and another and oh, _oh_ , shit, shit, shit that’s right where she fucking needs it again and one more, one more oh god oh god oh — 

“ _Fuuu-ck_ ,” she gasps, and it’s a cry, a groan, an incredulous little laugh that carries through the middle of all the rough, sharp edges of her voice. She can feel it fucking _everywhere_ , inside of her and along her legs and blissing out through every nerve and muscle and tendon that strains with the sheer intensity of it. Her whole body _shakes_ beneath him, practically convulsing, and the edge has only just barely begun to taper off before he rips all conscious thought from her, his hips rutting against her once, twice before he stutters, stills and spills into her with a half-broken cry of her name, forehead coming to rest against hers clumsily. And heat once again pulls her focus, has her whole world narrowing down to every throbbing, pulsing twitch of his cock as he fills her with wet warmth, edges of her sex delighting in all of that delicious little friction in an effort to drag her orgasm out just a touch longer, god _damn_.

Beyond burning, her body feels like it’s been carved inside out; it’s impossible to form real thoughts, much less words, hard enough to keep her gaze trained on him with how fuzzy her vision’s gone around the edges again. For a moment the world is nothing but Robin: the soft glow of his skin under sunlight; the way his eyelashes fan out across his cheeks; the overwhelming scent of something woodsy, slightly floral; the way she can feel his heart beating against her hands; the way she feels new at the places their bodies are intertwined.

Soulmate takes on a whole new meaning, in the aftermath of a storm.

She’s fading fast, is only half-aware of the way his hips jolt slightly with the aftershocks of his release, but she’s still here, in the now, still with him as he relinquishes his grip on her hands and rests his full weight on top of her. He mumbles something against her ear, a breathless _just a moment_ or something similar, she really can’t be bothered to concentrate enough to discern anything more or dwell on what he might mean, why he wants her to wait. Cannot, after a poor night’s sleep and basically an empty stomach and three near back to back to back orgasms, manage to do anything more than arch, lean into the weighted warmth of him as he nuzzles his face against her neck, his beard a pleasant, almost soothing scratch against her skin.

She’s not quite sure exactly how long it is — mere moments, probably, but she’s lost all perception of time by this point — before Robin finally props himself up on his arms to put just enough space between them to breathe a little easier. Regina can’t help but smile as she takes in just how thoroughly _fucked_ he looks: hair mussed, tufts sticking out at odd angles; eyes half-lidded, heavy and hazy; smile a little lopsided, sleepy; neck flushing red and slick with sweat. Idly, she lifts a hand, runs the backs of her fingers along the scruff covering his cheek, jaw, chin. Robin matches the gesture in kind, traces the tips of his fingers across her brow, along the shell of her ear before tucking her hair back and dipping down for a kiss slow and sweet, soft, warm. She hooks her fingers under his chin, tilts him up to keep him close, and the kisses that follow are like counting stars against the night sky — too numerous to keep track of and seemingly everlasting.

After that time seems to sort of skip and bleed out upon itself: kisses evaporate into air that stretches into her muscles as he reaches beyond her toward the basket, produces a somehow-damp cloth that had previously escaped her notice, uses it to haphazardly half-clean come from her sex, his skin. The loss of him inside of her has her rolling onto her side with a slight groan, muscles still sore and somehow relaxed, loose all at once. The sun is like a burning beacon against her back, preying upon unguarded skin and making her throat feel rough, dry and in desperate need of water, but once again Robin is there, _here_ , pressing his front to her back and wrapping himself around her, lips bussing, grazing a familiar kiss to her bare shoulder. It’s not until he reaches down, hand finding hers with ease to slot their fingers together, that she manages to open her eyes again at all, and even then she can only blink blearily against fading sunlight.

The lion tattoo on his arm flickers in and out of view, a brand of its own making, but the sight of it fills Regina with renewed warmth, and buried somewhere in the back of her mind she thinks that perhaps Robin had been right, earlier: making the most of the moments they have isn’t so much about fate, or timing, but choice.

And in any realm, any time or any life, she would choose him, a thousand times.


	3. Chapter 3

She’s not even really aware that she’s drifted off until consciousness starts to creep back in around the edges of her mind, a hazy awareness that starts with the way her breath sits in her chest, soft and quiet and full. From there it expands and curls back in upon itself, shifts to the easy way her head rests tucked into the crook of her arm, the way her hair feels light draped across the back of her neck. Only then does it occur to her that however long she’s been out of it — drifting, sleeping, or otherwise — has been the near-equivalent of a reset button: she feels _rested_ , unusually so, but Regina can’t even find it in her to be fussed about it. A phantom of a smile twitches onto her lips as she burrows further into her arm, toes flexing against a soft, velvet-like material.

A breeze brushes over her skin, chilly and acute, and the smile ghosts its way into a wrinkle of a frown as she shivers slightly against it. The air smells crisp, too-fresh, has settled over the grass and enhanced the permeating perfume of the roses, and it’s that, in the end — the blossoming of flowers in her mind — that has her eyes fluttering open at last, memories bridging the gap over sleep to meet the reality before her now. She’s still in the garden, still sprawled out across the quilt Robin had spread across the grass, and she is still, by all accounts, very much naked.

Abruptly, she lifts her head with a sharp inhale, blinks around blearily as her vision comes back into full focus, but the threat of panic and embarrassment that pushes the breath from her lungs is quickly quelled when she hears Robin speak and oh, right, she’s not alone. “It’s all right,” he murmurs, causing her to glance up at where he’s sitting next to her. “We’re still alone. You’re covered. No one’s been by.”

Disoriented and more than a little confused, she shifts her gaze back to her own body and finally notes the cloak he’d draped over her figure, red velvet soft and warm and covering up any indecency. When she looks back to him she realizes he’s done much the same for himself, green velvet hooked around his hips and covering his lap, most of his legs. His chest is still, thankfully, deliciously bare, thumb tucked between the pages of the blue book she’d taken note of earlier.

Still, even with the reassurance that they haven’t been discovered, Regina finds herself clutching at the edges of her cloak and pulling them closer to her chest. “How long was I out?” she mumbles, voice feeling a bit thick and gravelly with sleep.

“‘m not quite sure,” Robin says. “An hour, maybe?”

Nose wrinkling, Regina glances up at the now-gray sky and finally takes note of the sun’s disappearance, the way they light has shifted behind clouds thick, drifting. The temperature’s dropped considerably, too, so she wraps her cloak more securely around her chest as she props herself up on an elbow, careful to keep covered. “You could’ve woken me,” she grumbles.

“You needed it,” he dismisses, folding down the corner of the page he’s on before snapping the book shut quietly and setting it aside.

The all too present void she finds herself falling into night after night flares up like a shadow, has her bristling, just slightly, at the remark. “And you don’t?” she argues, and okay, maybe that’s a little beneath her, to resort to turning the tables on him, but they’d been having such a pleasant afternoon, light and easy; she doesn’t want to fall back into darkness just yet.

Robin, for his part, remains unperturbed by her turnaround, just levels her with a knowing look and keeps his voice patient, calm. “I’ve not returned to the Netherworld in well over two weeks,” he counters, gentle but firm. “It’s been longer still since I’ve woken up with any burns.”

Something flutters, twists in her chest at that — the reminder that he has taken curse, and blade, and burden all in the name of loving her. She’s not at all prepared for it, not now, particularly not when she’s still shaking off the last vestiges of sleep, and she can’t — she _won’t_ allow him to dismiss the magnitude of what he’s borne, what he’s done, for her. “That doesn’t mean you’ve stopped going altogether,” she murmurs, hair falling forward over her shoulder as she drops her gaze to the ground.

He inhales sharply but still Robin reaches for her, fingers skittering across the quilt and stopping just shy of hers, hovering, waiting. “That may be,” he sighs, “but I think I’ve slept a damn sight better than you have lately.”

“I slept,” she sniffs indifferently, still avoiding his gaze as she pushes herself into a sitting position at last.

“Not enough,” he says, shifting a little closer to her as she straightens up and tucks her hair behind her ear. “And not well.”

She can’t help the way her jaw jumps in irritation, swallows hard against her ire and steadfastly does _not_ dwell on the way the confirmation of her earlier concern — that he’s been more aware of her persisting nightmares than she’d thought — makes her squirm uncomfortably. “Well is relative. I’ve been sleeping better than I did those first two weeks after our arrival,” she reasons, chancing a glance at him out of the corner of her eye. “You’re not the only one who can make that argument.”

He’s… quiet for a moment or two while she spends more time than she really needs to adjusting the cloak around her frame, twisting and tucking and pinning to keep it in place around her bust. She can feel Robin’s eyes on her but she only allows herself to half-glance at him peripherally while she works. It’s not until she’s nearly finished that she catches a glimpse of a smirking smile tinged with fondness twisting its way onto his lips. That’s all the warning she gets before he’s nosing her hair, her neck in clear affection, lips grazing a damp kiss along the shell of her ear. “You’re rather grumpy when you first wake up,” he murmurs, the barest hint of a laugh in his voice. “Has anyone ever told you that?”

Regina wrinkles her nose, displeased, and arches away enough to level a glare at him. “Don’t compare me to Leroy,” she grumbles.

“Why?” Robin chuckles, hiding his grin behind her shoulder. “Because he’s beneath you?”

“No, because he’s irritating,” she snaps, but there’s no heat behind it, “and over-dramatic.”

He quirks an eyebrow at her, clearly amused. “And what was that discussion we had about a love for theatrics earlier?” he muses.

She _tsk_ s in mild annoyance, rolls her eyes and deliberately looks away from him, but her ire fizzles quickly, completely at the way he darts soft kisses along her skin, up her arm to her shoulder and neck and ear until she’s shaking with silent laughter at the way his beard tickles. She twists, turns back into him to tell him to knock it off, but his lips continue along their path, fly, soar and land upon hers and that’s… rather nice, actually. He tastes surprisingly sweet, like he’d indulged in something from the picnic he’d packed, and it has her following, chasing him for a few kisses more before she finally lets him pull away.

Still, they stay close, noses nuzzling as he gently caresses his fingers along the nape of her neck. And it’s… comforting, his touch, soothing enough to have her curling into him a little more, a ward against the sudden chill of a breeze blowing its way through the garden. “Are you feeling any better?” he ventures.

“That implies I wasn’t feeling well to begin with earlier,” she mumbles, and she’s being stubborn, she knows, but she can feel the last flickers of fight dying out, her protests growing thin, lackluster.

“You looked _miserable_ when I found you in the study earlier,” he says, his tone brooking no argument. “The whole point of this was to get you to relax, rest up a bit, clear your head.”

Regina softens into a smile as the last vestiges of sleep dissipate and her memories come into full clarity. He’d been right, earlier: an hour or so in the garden, and the study, has done her a _world_ of good. “The nap helped,” she admits, pulling back just slightly to meet his eyes, “among other things.”

Robin returns her smile with ease, leans in to pepper a kiss between her brows, but there’s nothing smug about it, no smirk or heavy implication of _I told you so_. “I’d wager then,” he continues, encouraged, “that you could go for a bite to eat right about now.”

“Perhaps,” she flirts, knowing where he’s going with this but playing along anyway.

“Well then,” he murmurs, eyes flicking down, dwelling on her lips for a half-moment, “I think I have just the thing.”  
`  
“Do you now?” she muses, hiding her grin against her shoulder as he reaches for the picnic basket. He doesn’t answer her yet, just sets to work unpacking the contents for display; it’s not necessary — she’d given it a perusal earlier, after all — but she’s content to let him show off his work, be proud of his efforts. He put such _thought_ into this, must have gone out of his way to procure some of these delights (she cannot even _begin_ to fathom how he managed to get his hands on Arendelle chocolate around these parts).

This is Robin’s gift for her, and Regina would be remiss not to let him give it properly.

Still, she can’t help the way her brow shoots up to her hairline at the set of plates, silverware he unearths toward the end. “You really did think of everything, didn’t you?”

As if on cue, he passes her a cloth napkin fresh from the laundry, smile far too knowing for his own good. “I tried, anyway.”

Regina shakes her head in bemusement but shakes the napkin out over her lap anyway, shifting on the quilt to make a little space for the meal between them. “I find it a touch hypocritical of you, though,” she adds, reaching for the grapes to help him portion out parts of the spread, “to berate me for the way I treated Guinevere's china when you’ve lifted dishes from her kitchen.”

“Ah, and that’s where you’re wrong, milady,” he teases, handing her one of the goblets. “I asked if I might borrow a few things for the afternoon, and the good queen was only too happy to oblige. I pilfered nothing.”

“Turning over a new leaf?” she hums, lips twisting into a teasing smile.

“You know, I _was_ raised as nobility,” he reminds her, and okay, maybe she deserves that; she does often forget about his upbringing. “I may _choose_ to live my life outside the law, Your Majesty, but that doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten how to be a good guest.”

“I suppose I’ll have to count that among your many talents, then,” she sighs, careful to keep her goblet steady as he fills hers with mead, then his own.

“And, uh, what, pray tell, would you consider to be some of the others?” he ventures, smiling into his cup.

Regina surveys him from over the rim of hers, mead a warm, wet stain against her lips, her tongue as she takes a few sips, savoring the flavor. He’s left her the opening — she could so easily steer them both back into the simmering heat still burning beneath their skin — but she’s not quite ready to take it just yet. The nap helped, true enough, but she hasn’t eaten in close to a full day, and of the hunger twisting inside of her the one that gnaws at her stomach in near-pain wins out at the moment.

“Well,” she says finally, twirling the stem of her cup between her fingers, “you _do_ pack a pretty perfect picnic. Or did you think I’d forgotten the first one?”

Something about him… softens, at that, has his eyes growing warm, hazy as he considers her, and though his smile doesn’t falter she doesn’t miss the way his gaze drifts, drops to the ink sewn into his arm. “It seems like so long ago, doesn’t it?”

“Ages,” she agrees, but her perception is skewed, she knows. Half a year would hardly qualify as ages to most, but the space between her and Robin has stretched, spread thin in that time, threatening to fissure and fray apart. She longs to be close to him even now, when they’re only a few feet apart, but she settles for holding her cup out in offering, smile softening around the edges. “I guess this was pretty long overdue.”

Slowly, he lifts his gaze back up and tips his goblet against hers in silent toast. “We should consider making a habit of this,” he suggests, taking a sip. “Add it to the list of things we’d like to do when we get home.”

Her heart flutters, stomach flipping at _home_ (at _when we get home_ , and guilt is a whisper of a shadow in the back of her mind, tempting the twisting dark). Regina forces herself to swallow another large drink down until her cup is nearly empty, smacks her lips slightly and grimaces at the way it burns all the way down, stomach rumbling in reminder of just how badly she needs to eat. So she sets the goblet aside in favor of pursuing the spread on her plate, popping a few grapes into her mouth. “You sound like you’ve given it a fair bit of thought,” she muses as she assembles a bite of bread and meat and cheese. “What else is on that list?”

He’s quiet for a half moment before following her lead, reaching for his own plate to graze over the selections. “I can’t speak for any of the others, but most of them are things we talked about, before — enrolling Roland in the school, come autumn, finding some proper work. I figure the sheriff probably wouldn’t appreciate the Merry Men operating as if things were business as usual. Not to mention,” he teases, grinning at her when she glances over at him and arches an eyebrow in amusement, “I fear the mayor’s wrath should I contribute to an increasing crime rate in her beloved town.”

“As you well should,” she agrees, but she’s laughing through it, shaking her head as she portions out another bite to quell her now ravenous appetite. “Although, while Miss Swan may be exasperated at having to deal with the antics of a band of thieves, I can’t imagine your men would have much to fear from her beyond mild chastising.”

“It’d certainly be new for them,” Robin chuckles between bites, “to have law enforcement on their side.”

“It wouldn’t last long,” she says, throwing him a look. “I doubt the mayor would stand for such corruption.”

“Certainly not,” he murmurs, biting his lower lip to hide a grin before reaching for the bottle of mead again to refresh their goblets. “She could hardly be known to be harboring a fugitive, either, much less sharing a bed with one — assuming that offer is… still on the table?” he ventures, surveying her carefully as he passes her cup back to her.

“It is,” she reassures him, leaning in to buss a quick kiss to his cheek. “Besides, it wouldn’t feel right to have you and Roland back at the camp after all of this. My bed would feel empty, it’d be too…”

“Quiet?” he supplies, smirking a little behind the rim of his cup.

Regina rolls her eyes. “Among other things,” she mutters, slowly picking at the last few large bites on her plate.

It’s his turn to bestow another kiss upon her, lips grazing gently against her temple, but the gesture is enough to chase away any hint of impending irritation or ire at the teasing. “So that’s on your list then, is it?” he asks, stealing a few grapes off of her plate and snickering when she bats at him for it. “Helping us move in?”

She can’t quite help the way her heart skips a beat at the thought, can’t even find it in her to be annoyed at the way she downright _demures_ at the question, doesn’t bother hiding her smile as she pops her last composed bite into her mouth. “I’m looking forward to it,” she admits. “Your son has already charmed his way into having me commission Marco for a toy box and a second bookshelf. _My_ son, on the other hand,” she sighs, draining the last of her mead, “is using this as an argument to let him redecorate his own room.”

“Which I’m assuming you also couldn’t say no to,” Robin says knowingly, plucking her goblet from her hand and cleaning up their dishes from the quilt.

Her lips twist, purse to prevent a smile, but it’s a pathetic attempt, really, thinly veiled. “I’m drawing the line at carving any holes in that wall they share. I won’t enable any ideas that’ll keep them up later than they should be. And neither,” she warns, “should you.”

“Believe it or not, Roland won’t be much of a problem,” he counters, depositing the dishes back in the basket and reaching for the waterskin. “That boy rises with the sun, most days, I’m not sure he has it in him to stay up until all hours of the night. Our other son, on the other hand,” he says, passing her the waterskin after taking a swig himself, “has come dangerously close to sleeping until high noon on a handful of days this summer.”

Regina nearly sputters around her mouthful of water, swallows and barks out a rough laugh as she hands the waterskin back to him, reaching to break off a piece of chocolate at long last. “If you think _I’m_ grumpy when I first wake up, you haven’t tried waking Henry before nine on a weekend.”

“Must run in the family then,” he mutters, earning him a light _thwap_ to the chest. He remains thoroughly unperturbed, though, just catches her hand before she can pull it away and tugs her to him gently. “I figure that little nap of yours a while ago is enough of a testament to my commitment to making sure a Mills gets enough beauty sleep.” It shouldn’t pull at her heartstrings the way it does, shouldn’t conjure up the memories of bodies without breath and skin blistered by burns, but it does, it _does_ , and she cannot help the way she falters, just slightly, over her own guilt, sweet chocolate turning slightly bitter as she swallows it down.

The beat or two of silence on her part doesn’t escape Robin’s notice (of course it doesn’t, nothing ever does and she loves him but god, she wishes he were a little less observant right now). “C’mere,” he beckons softly, and thank god it’s not an apology because it’s the last thing he should do for trying to make her _feel better_. Regina goes with his pull easily, twists and shifts on the blanket until she’s sitting with her back toward him. His lips find her shoulder, first, prompting her eyes to slip shut, but it’s only when his hands settle over her shoulders and start to massage at some of the tension in her muscles that she allows herself to exhale slowly and begin to relax under his touch. It’s a cap to the break she’d so desperately needed earlier — a way to soothe the stiffness in her body, the crisp air counteracting all of the stifling, suffocating heat of the study a few hours ago.

In the midst of a garden under gray, Regina leans into Robin’s light and tries to let the shadows fall away.

It’s a few moments before he speaks again, thumbs working out the knot in her neck. “We should do this with the others,” he murmurs, lips tracing over the trails his hands and fingers leave behind.

“Do what, have picnics?” she muses, lips twitching with the phantom of a near-smile. “Because I’ll tell you right now, if this is what our picnics are going to be like from now on, I’m not really into that specific brand of exhibitionism.”

“Make a list,” he clarifies, nipping playfully at her earlobe and pulling a not-giggle out of her. “If any of this has served as a reminder that we have a home, a life to go back to — if it’s lifted _your_ spirits even a little, imagine what it could do for the others.” His fingers still, just for a half-beat, and then, “For Emma.”

Regina sobers up a little at that, smile faltering even as he resumes working out a particularly irksome twist in her back. But it’s different than before: her chest feels almost light, heart not quite so heavy. She’s been self-isolating, she knows, holed up in that study and buried in piles upon piles of pages; it’s been difficult to see beyond it — okay, maybe she hasn’t _let_ herself focus on anything other than the task at hand. But it’s just felt… selfish, really, to use the time she has on anything else. It’s time she wouldn’t have without what Emma had done for her.

She wouldn’t have this time with Robin — wouldn’t have _him_ at all — if not for Emma, either.

She’d meant what she’d said a little while ago: their little rendezvous _has_ helped, immensely, and while she doesn’t think it’s wise to get carried away with making plans, she can’t deny that _this_ — talking about a future, a _life_ with Robin, with their boys, their friends, the rest of their family, with _Emma_ — has done so much more than just lift her spirits. It’s a light at the end of the tunnel, and every step forward reveals the promise each new day holds.

Regina does not always have to fail, and at the turn of the last page is not an ending but a whole new beginning.

Her prolonged silence must give the wrong impression though, because Robin wraps his arms around her waist and rests his cheek against her shoulder, his sigh not quite suppressing a slight hint of exasperation. “I’m not suggesting you give up, darling, I just meant that I thought it could —”

“— help, no, I know,” she supplies softly. The memory of Emma’s shaking hands this morning comes back to her like a missing page, but it doesn’t rattle Regina’s bones the way it has been all day. There’s light there, too, in the way Emma had sought or accepted help, company, comfort, even if it’d just been in small, isolated pockets, and it’s with a small twist of pride that Regina remembers this is not the first time Emma has faced darkness with the intention of coming out the other side.

Together they move forward, one page of progress at a time.

Her smile comes more easily now, eyes fluttering open as she turns in his embrace. “It doesn’t help us make progress with Merlin, really, but… you’re right,” she says, and it’s finally stuck, the niggling little notion that time is hers to own and not waste. “Regardless of how long we’re here, I think the others could really use that right now — a reminder that we still have hope, that we’re still fighting _for_ something. I know I did.”

Robin softens into a smile at that, beams and blushes and brushes his fingertips along the length of her arm. It’s hard not to shiver at his touch, harder still when a gentle breeze blows its way through the garden, but she can hold out a little longer, can wait to lean into his warmth. “I hate to break it to you, Your Majesty,” he says, a hint of a laugh in his voice, “but you owe Snow a quarter.”

“Does it really matter,” she teases, dancing her fingertips along his collarbone, “if we’re all handling the same jar anyway?”

“I suppose not,” he allows, laugh bubbling up out of him at last. “Though I will say if this is the result then I’m glad to have contributed in the first place.”

She falters, just slightly, sucks in a breath until she can feel her heart beating at the bottom of her throat, and when she speaks there is nothing but love lifted from her lungs. “You do so much more than that,” she murmurs, leaning in to brush her nose against his. He hesitates for the space of a beat before bringing his hand up to cup her face, gentle and clumsy, and somewhere in her she thinks that maybe he needed to hear that, to be reassured that he can still be useful here, somehow, that his contribution holds as much value as any of the others.

(That he was worth saving, that night, if only for himself alone — for a heart and soul beyond flesh and blood and bone.)

Her suspicions are only confirmed when she feels the way he exhales against her, heavy, shaking, and he’s nowhere close to tears but his voice is definitely thicker than usual. “Like pack picnics?” he chuckles.

“ _Yes_ ,” she says, pulling back to look him in the eye and _refusing_ to let him even play at self-deprecation. “Thank you, really, for all of this — getting me out of the study, helping me… relax, the picnic, the _flowers_ ,” she adds, casting a glance over at the clutch of daisies she’d yet to address. “I needed this. And… at least one thing hasn’t changed from our last picnic,” she says, dropping her voice a bit as she looks down, reaches for his arm and caresses meaningfully over his tattoo. “For so long I really never thought I would have anything like this — have _you_. I don’t want to take any of it for granted even _with_ timing on our side.” She takes a beat to breathe, hands stilling against his arm, but when she looks up at him her heart feels almost… fragile, in her chest, like it could splinter, crack open and bleed and still be whole, beating in his hands. It leaves her near breathless, has her eyes stinging and her smile wavering as she tries to find the right words. “Make the most of the moments we have, right?”

Something brims in Robin’s eyes at that, bright and beaming and it takes her a second to recognize it for what it is: hope.

(God, she really is becoming a Charming, isn’t she?)

It dims, fades into the background but it’s still there, she can see it even as he anchors a hand at the small of her back and pulls her flush against him. Heat twists at her core, has her heart stuttering, her breath growing shallow as his eyes rove her face, lip bitten between his teeth. “You know,” he murmurs, and _fuck_ , his voice has dropped an octave or two, turned rough around the edges and he knows, he _knows_ what that does to her, “I really don’t think I could do anything that would accurately convey just _how much_ I love you, Regina Mills.”

Her stomach flips, takes some of the edge off from that twisting coil of heat building in her again. It takes everything in her not to let her hand drift down lower, smooth over the place along his belly there should be a wound, a scar, to fall back into a void splattered with red in an effort to prove her point. Instead she keeps her gaze locked with his, focuses on the way the blue around his irises turns stormy under the watchful eye of a gray sky, and she reaches up to cradle his jaw in kind. “You don’t have to,” she says, offering up a small smile. “I know.”

The kiss that follows is inevitable, but there’s still something about it that feels like coming home, warm and familiar and safe. For a few moments her inhibitions are gone entirely: none of her moves are calculated; she doesn’t spare a second thought for where they are or what’s appropriate. She merely curls a hand around to the back of his neck, nails grazing lightly against his skin, lets the other drop from his face to his shoulder, collar, chest and _revel_ in the way his heart picks up pace under her palm as she deepens the kiss. There’s no reason to be afraid, here, in the eye of Robin’s storm: no slight spasms or tentative touches in fear of turning him to ash; no shadows creeping in around the edges to chase away the light; no guilt settling upon her shoulders like a second skin. Here the world rights itself and stands still, and Regina is nothing other than the sum of all her parts: a heart still beating, even when it’s battered black and blue.

It feels _good_ , this, the sweet, sinful slide of his tongue against hers, the solid warmth of his body as she arches, presses her chest against his, but it’s not enough. The aching, desperate twist of not being able to have him the way she really wants is a distant, tingling sensation in the back of her belly, familiarity creeping back in around the edges, but there’s less in her way now, initial urgency long since satisfied. Slowly, she withdraws, sucks, nips at his lower lip before pulling back all the way and sucking in a sharp breath. There’s warmth in his eyes as he surveys her, hand caressing at her waist over velvet, but it’s not until she flicks her gaze down and finds the cloak draped over his lap tented that she recognizes it as _heat_.

Round three has found them, it seems, and oh, how she’s going to savor him.

Grinning, Regina digs her teeth into her bottom lip as she shifts away from him, smug satisfaction flaring up in her chest at the way he swallows hard when she reaches for the edge of her cloak tucked tight around her. It’s surprisingly easy to undo her carefully constructed makeshift fastening, material slipping into her hands as she unwraps the cloak and lets it fall, pool into a pile behind her. Predictably, his gaze drops to her chest, tongue darting out to wet his lips, but she’s leaning back in before he can get too distracted, mouth sucking a hot kiss against his neck. The moan he lets out is soft, pleasant as his hands reaches around to skim along the expanse of her back, and it’s a very near thing that she doesn’t shiver in reply. 

Robin does, though, when her hand traces over the outline of his cock beneath the cloak. His Adam’s apple bobs in his throat just beyond her lips as he swallows hard, turns his head slightly to try and look at her. “What d’you want?” he murmurs, voice breathy and low and yes, good, this is exactly how she wants him.

She smiles, coy and teasing as she lifts her head to meet his gaze. “I think it’s pretty obvious.”

“ _Regina_ ,” he says, and it’s meant to be chastising, a plea to not toy with him, but he’s laughing underneath it, sharp and happy and bemused.

But savoring isn’t teasing, not with the intent to follow through, so it’s without an ounce of inhibition that she shifts up, closes in until her lips are hovering a breath away from his and wraps her fingers carefully around the shape of his cock. He twitches under her touch even with the layer of fabric between them, hips arching up into her hand ever so slightly as his breath hitches, catches in his chest, and even though they cannot see each other clearly this close together Regina keeps her eyes locked on his. “I want to taste you.”

The kiss he steals is hard, biting and firm as his hand dips down, reaches around to grab, grope at her ass and wait, wait, fuck, no, _god_ he’s so unfair, can drive her to distraction so easily with his fingers threaded through her hair, the hot burn of his kiss. She’s arching against him automatically, hips rocking slightly back into his hand, but he only pulls her focus for a moment more, has her coming to her senses when he leans forward to guide her back down against the quilt. “Uh-uh,” she murmurs, breathy and low, rocks forward and presses a hand to his chest. “Lie back.”

“But — “

“ _Lie. Back_ ,” she says firmly, nails stinging into his skin just a touch. Robin huffs in mild indignance but doesn’t resist further, settles back onto his elbows and watches her as she traces a trail of soft kisses down his chest, his belly. “You asked me what I wanted. This,” she sighs, gripping the edge of his cloak and dragging it off of his lap, “is what I want.” She can’t help wetting her lips a little at the sight of his cock on display, hot and hard and flushed with arousal for her and fuck, he smells so good right now, that usual forest pine concentrated, mingled with sweat and sex and summer air.

Regina bites her lip and smiles up at him and she settles in, anticipation fluttering in her chest at the way his stomach clenches. “Well,” he says, sounding a little strained even as he raises his eyebrows at her in teasing, flirtation, “far be it from me to get in the way of what Her Majesty wants.”

She _hmm_ s in reply, turns her attention back to his cock and curls in a little closer. “I think you can safely assume,” she advises, reaching out to give his cock one good stroke, “that’s something you’re going to want to remember for the rest of your life.”

“Noted,” he gasps, legs trembling a little when she sucks a soft, open-mouthed kiss along his length. _God_ , he tastes good, salt of his skin a delicious counterpart to the sweetness of mead, chocolate lingering on her tongue. Eager, she dives back in for another, moves along to the side and drags her lips up inch by inch, breath hot and heavy between each one. But it’s not enough, she needs more, needs to _feel_ his heat, his weight against her tongue, wants to savor the taste of him before she really sets to work making him fall apart. So she starts at the base, drags her tongue flat and broad up the length of his cock and flicks away just shy of the tip, works her way around and drags her palm along his thigh.

A groan punches out of his chest once he’s slick enough for her to envelop without much resistance. It’s all she needs to hear to shift against him, angle her head, her neck and sink her mouth down over the head of his cock, tongue darting out to lick teasingly at the underside as she drags back up. The groan twists, coils into a sharp exhale through his nose, his whole body tensing slightly beneath her. Regina sinks back down, a little farther this time, lifts up and again, fingers circling around the thick base of him to create a little tightness, some extra friction. Her head twists a little on the next upstroke of her mouth, a delicious, dragging little thing that allows her to really _feel_ him all around, against her tongue and along the inside of her cheeks.

Robin’s hand lands quick atop her head, shaking slightly and giving her a moment’s pause, but it’s not a grab for control, she realizes quickly. It’s just an affectionate caress, gentle and kind to convey approval, gratitude and fuck, even when she’s trying to take care of him he’s still too-aware of her, attentive and loving and far more than she thinks she’ll ever really deserve. Still, she’s encouraged by the gesture, so Regina opens her mouth a little wider, strokes a little harder with her hand and picks up pace just slightly, twisting every so often. With every idle touch of his hand, her heart flutters, flips in her chest at the reminder that she has this, has _him_ , has the promise of so much _good_ around every turn to balance out every horror of her past, self-inflicted or otherwise.

He has chosen her, too.

For a long few moments they’re quiet under the garden’s gray skies, neither of them much aware of the occasional trill of birds, the way the wind picks up slightly and shifts the air around them. Regina keeps pace with every bob of her head, focus narrowed down to the warmth of his body against hers, the way his cock feels in her mouth, against her tongue, it’s good, so, so good, sends a flare of arousal through her sex, her clit, reminds her just how slick she still is from earlier. It’s been well over an hour since she’s come but she’s still aching, still pleasantly sore, squirming as she works him over with her mouth and god, she doesn’t think she could come again even now but she needs _some_ sort of relief, a way to scratch the itch burning under her skin.

Quickly, she pulls off of his cock, breath shaking, rattling out of her at the way he whines softly at the loss of her. She can see him better, now that she’s changing positions, can see the way the muscles in his neck and arms are straining from keeping himself propped up to watch her, notices the trembling of his chin and the way the blue of his eyes has turned dark, a stark contrast against the shifting light of the sky. He looks positively _wrecked_ , desperate and yearning and all Regina can do is smile at him, bright and bold as she hooks a leg over his thigh, hair falling over one shoulder as she leans down again, hands skimming up along the inside of his thighs. Warning flashes in his eyes, his thighs trembling under her touch as his hips jerk against open air, seeking friction, wet, warmth once more.

Far be it from her to deny him what _he_ wants, either.

Her fingers find his balls first, fondle and caress and squeeze gently against increasing warmth and Robin outright _whimpers_ , body taut as he clearly fights against bucking against her, claiming control. But she’d given up teasing him a long while ago, wants to grant him pleasure, release, so she doesn’t make him wait for it, just leans in and sinks her mouth down over his cock again. It’s easier now, given how slick she’s made him, her lips gliding over skin almost down to the base of him. He’s more wide than he is long — a fact she’s long been _more_ than satisfied with since she first took him to her bed — but it presents the same issue as more length would, doesn’t allow her to quite take him in all the way. What she lacks in that department she makes up in technique, though, drags and twists and twirls as her hand works over his balls.

The new position allows for her movements to be larger, longer, bold and quick, but it satisfies her itch, too. The increase in speed has her whole body rocking against him, nipples rubbing, catching against the thicker hair of his pelvis, his thighs, and sparking a scintillating tingling sensation at the back of her neck. The angle is different here, too, has her pressed against him more directly and her sex dragging deliciously over his thigh, his knee, coating his skin in slick, fuck, fuck, shit, that friction is fucking perfect against her clit, just the right amount of pressure. She can’t come again, she can’t, not right now, hasn’t had enough build or focus on it since she awoke, but god, she _could_ , soon, once she’s pulled all of the arousal right to the surface of Robin’s skin, once she has him gasping, coming beneath her, spilling hot and thick into her mouth, down her throat. The mere thought has her grinding against his knee, moaning around his cock as her mouth drags up, twists and sucks at the head — 

“ _Fuck, darling_ ,” Robin chokes out, hand smacking fitfully atop her free one. Regina flicks her eyes up, hovering, waiting with just the head of his cock in her mouth, but she is not at all prepared for the way he looks down at her, lust a flush along his neck, a burn in his cheeks and a fire most dark in his eyes. Her heart hammers _hard_ in her chest, a beating she can feel bleeding its way to the edges of her lungs, and her breath comes out heavy, hot when she releases him from her mouth and licks her lips in anticipation. “C’mere,” he urges, fingers curling around hers, gripping hard and tugging up. “Let me taste you, love, please, I beg you.”

It takes everything in her not to let her eyes slip shut at the fantasy his request conjures, the primal, erotic vision of them working in tandem to bring one another over the edge with their mouths. But Robin is close, she knows, she can feel it in every taut muscle, the aching hardness and flushing flesh of his cock, the shrinking seizing of his balls in her hand as they grow tight against his body. If she gives herself over to the ministrations of his mouth now she will be utterly lost to them, won’t have the focus to devote enough attention to him to finish what she started. And she does _want_ to finish what she started, has craved him like this for hours at this point; she doesn’t want to stop now.

They have salvaged time from the wreckage of fate’s hands, and Regina is not living if she won’t look forward.

“Later,” she murmurs, dotting a sweet kiss to his hipbone. “Tonight.”

“Bloody hell,” he hisses, head finally falling back against the quilt with a dull _thunk_. “Keep that up and I could claim the wealth of King Midas, darling.”

“I think I can afford it,” she laughs lightly (still not a giggle, it’s not, it’s not).

“Not the point,” he mutters, but he relaxes his grip, squeezing her fingers gently in permission even as his whole body shudders beneath her. “I want —”

“I know what you want,” she says, not unkindly. “I want the same thing.” She hesitates for half a moment, teases her lower lip between her teeth as she considers him before finally releasing him and shifting, sliding back up his body. He looks downright _dizzy_ with desire, eyes heavy, lidded as she comes up level with his face, but his gaze finds hers with ease, centers and holds even without her helping hand gently gripping his chin. “But this works both ways,” she reminds him, smiling warmly when his hand reaches up, tucks her hair behind her ear and brushes it back over her shoulder. “You’re not the only one who’s been entrusted with something valuable, _thief_.”

Something in his eyes shifts, at that, dark desire receding to the edges, and everything about his answering laugh is wet, warm — _touched_ and god, if that doesn’t hit her right at the very center of her soul. She knows that look, has seen it reflected back at her a thousand times over in every mirror that’s ever captured her gaze, and while she would never call it self-loathing on him she can recognize the shadows of surprise for what they are in them both, now.

He too, marvels at the magnitude of her love — of being deemed _worthy_ enough to bear it.

Yearning, she leans in to bestow a kiss upon him, the ache between her thighs fading into the background for the time being. “‘m close,” he breathes onto her lips, muffling a moan against her mouth at the next kiss she claims.

“I know,” she murmurs back, has not at all forgotten the way he’d felt in her hand, her mouth, the straining, rigid length of him still pressed against her hip. She leans in for one kiss more, sucking and long and sweet, but his chest expands, lungs filling with air even as their lips part, begin to break, and Regina finds herself surging forward, cupping his face in her hands and kissing him soundly. 

A chill settles over her skin, causing her to shiver with the sharp snap of cold; she finds it echoed back at her across Robin’s skin, leans into the way it prompts him to wrap his arms around her in an effort to warm them both. The air in the garden stills, quite suddenly for the space of another long, lingering kiss, and Regina senses more than feels the calm evaporate into the atmosphere as the eye of the storm passes over them.

Literally, apparently.

It starts as a slight prickle between her shoulderblades, dots out to her arms, the back of her thighs, but it’s not until she feels a too-moist splash on the back of her neck that Regina manages to pull back, blinking in confusion. Robin narrows his eyes, not quite as quick to be startled out of the embrace, but the next drop lands at the corner of his mouth, has him sputtering slightly and blinking up with her.

Above them the skies open up, and in a flash, rain starts to _pour_.

Startled by the sudden summer storm, they’re left scrambling in the middle of the rose garden, disentangling from one another clumsily and fumbling for their cloaks. She can hardly see straight as she unravels the red velvet in her hands, struggling to straighten it out as water gathers on her lashes and blurs her vision, but she manages just as the rain has soaked her through and through, shakes it out and pulls it over her head. Robin’s hand appears in front of her, barely visible even when she squints to discern him, but she reaches for him half-blind anyway, allows him to pull her to her feet.

For half a moment they’re both at a loss, spinning on the spot as they peer around the garden for refuge. Robin spots an out first, tugs her in the opposite direction they’d come in until she follows him. It’s all she can do to keep her cloak clutched around her, rain drenching the velvet and causing it to cling to her awkwardly as they run across the garden barefoot, trip and stumble and try not to slip across slick patches of grass or gathering puddles of mud. But they manage to stay on their feet, hands clasped between them as they pass rose bushes and willow trees, stone benches and the sturdy structure of the royal stables nearby.

It’s there, just beyond the stables, that they find shelter at long last, finally stumbling breathless, almost wild into the massive barn at the far end of the garden, both sets of double doors miraculously open upon their arrival. Only when they have a roof over them do they let go, each of them struggling to catch their breath in kind as they peel soaked velvet from their skins and try to adjust their cloaks into a wearable state around their naked forms. Her fingers slip, shake from the cold as she tries to fasten the clasp, but she’s only left to her own devices for a minute before Robin’s hands cover hers to help her out. “You’d think after six weeks we’d be used to how quickly the weather changes here, but apparently not,” he huffs, brow knit in concentration as he finishes fastening her cloak up for her.

“Tell me about it,” she mutters, leaning against him for warmth and sighing when his arms dip beneath her cloak to wrap around her snugly. Her cheek comes to rest against his chest, adrenaline wearing off as he drops a kiss atop her head. He’s only half-hard against her belly now, shock from the storm having taken the edge off, but he doesn’t seem all that bothered by it. In a way she supposes that’s a good thing: the flame is still there, ready to be stoked back to full fire, but the when and how (and where) are still on their terms.

For now, she — _they_ are content to curl into each other’s arms, flushed flesh between them as she listens to his heartbeat slow back to rest. Together they try to recreate their own calm, seeking safety in an artificial eye for a few moments as the rain falls from sky to ground in a roaring hush. In a matter of moments the entire estate is blanketed in a mist, showers washing out less solid ground until the paths are murky, muddy, and it’s not long at all before the last traces of their picnic disappear from view, hidden behind the storm’s veil.

There’s a part of her that feels as if she _should_ be more bothered by this, peevish and snappy and sharp with snark but… she’s not. She’s not upset at all, honestly, and it takes her a moment of searching — of watching the downpour intensify and the temperature in the air shift, spike slightly — before she realizes _why_.

Her shoulders are shaking with silent laughter before she can stop herself, and she’s not at all surprised when Robin pulls back slightly to look down at her, eyebrow quirked in equal parts curiosity and incredulity. “And what, exactly, is so funny about all this?” he drawls.

“Nothing,” she dismisses with a shake of her head, but a laugh bubbles up out of her all the same, grin growing all the while. “Nothing, it’s just —” Another shake of her head, smile becoming bemused as she turns her attention back to the torrential downpour just outside and she _cannot help herself_. “This isn’t exactly what I had in mind earlier when I asked you for a raincheck.” And god, saying it out loud makes it sound even more ridiculous, has her tucking her chin against her chest and snickering, hand reaching up to tuck some of her now too-wet hair behind her ear and — 

“Marry me.”

Her heart stutters, stumbles and skips in her chest, smile faltering just slightly around the edges. Slowly, she lifts her head to meet his eyes, fingers falling, coming to rest along the column of her throat. “What?”

He takes a breath but falters, thunderstruck and a little dazed as he smiles down at her. It’s almost like he’s at a loss for words, now that the others are hanging in the air between them, and the way his fingers press, caress firm and warm at the small of her back feels as much an effort to anchor himself as it is to bring her comfort. “Regina, I love you,” he says, too-gentle against the hush of rain just outside. “And I — _fuck_ , I’ve spent weeks trying to figure out how to go about this, held onto that ring while I weighed my options and tried to figure out the best way to ask. I couldn’t tell John — he never would’ve been able to keep his mouth shut — and Killian’s suggestions, while not without merit, were a bit… much, at least for you, so it’s been —”

“Okay, just… give me a few seconds here,” she breathes, pressing her fingertips against his lips. “I have so many questions, I’m not even sure where to start.” Robin’s lips twitch slightly under her touch, smile a bit sheepish in the wake of rushed, rambled confessions but it still comes effortless, easy, his eyes warm and welcoming while he waits her out. And in the sudden silence she’s carved out of the air between them Regina finds herself mostly at a loss herself, for how to fill it. “ _Weeks_?” she echoes, unable to help the way her voice splinters, cracks, her whole chest feeling tight.

He exhales heavily, slow and even against her skin before reaching up to pull her fingers from his lips, thumb running along the center of her palm. “Like I said, I’ve given it a lot of thought beyond just that ring. It’s just — none of the ideas I was coming up with felt quite right, not entirely, and I felt a bit like I was working with some… limitations? Not to mention, darling, that you do _loathe_ surprises.”

Something flares up in her chest — indignance, maybe — and has words spilling out of her mouth before she can think them through. “I don’t hate _all_ surprises,” she protests, faltering slightly when he raises his eyebrows at her. “The picnic was nice.”

Robin softens a little, chuckles low and in the back of his throat and she almost doesn’t hear it for the harsh smattering of rain against wood above them. “I think that’s rather the exception, milady, not the general rule.”

The flare twists, burns against her sternum like it’s trying to char through bone, but where Regina turns to ash Robin does not, and it’s over his heart her hands find rest. “And you didn’t think I’d make an exception for this?”

His answering smile is like a balm, soft and warm around the edges as he leans in to brush his nose against hers. “Truth be told, I’ve been hoping you would. After the ball — after what Emma did, the book, the curse, New York? I wanted —” He falters for half a moment here, swallows hard, almost audibly, but when he speaks again the whisper of his voice sends shivers down her spine. “I wanted so much to do this good and proper, I kept searching, waiting for the right moment but…”

“You want to make the most of the ones we have, messy as they might be,” she supplies, a bit breathless as his innocuous little remark in the study earlier comes back to her in a flash (but no, no, that’s real, that’s here and just beyond the threshold of the barn, storm sparking light across the sky). She wants, so much in this moment, to be able to pull back, look him in the eyes properly to help her find her center, but her heart has surpassed her throat, is pounding behind her eyes until they sting and she will not cry right now, she won’t, she won’t.

Sucking in a breath Regina drops her head and turns her gaze to the ground, blinking rapidly in an effort to focus. Her feet are near-filthy, mud spattered around the edges, between her toes and no matter how hard she digs her teeth into her bottom lip she cannot stifle the wet laugh that escapes her. All at once she becomes acutely aware of her surroundings: they are in a _barn_ , just off the stables, in Camelot; it is storming something _awful_ a mere fifteen feet away; she is _naked_ beneath this cloak, velvet soaked and sticking, plastering itself to her skin as it shivers into gooseflesh; and she is reasonably sure that her hair is a goddamn disaster at the moment, tangled and stringy and somehow still curling against moisture, humidity.

Messy doesn’t even _begin_ to cover this.

Slowly, she lifts her head to meet his eyes, nose wrinkling a little as a thought occurs to her. “Did you choose this moment _because_ I’m kind of a mess right now?”

“You,” Robin murmurs, fingers reaching up to tuck her hair behind her ear, trace featherlight along the curve of her jaw, “are stunning.” He ignores the derisive snort that escapes her at the ridiculous compliment, presses on and insists, “Really, darling, you’re the one who chose the moment for me.”

The stinging in her eyes starts to ebb, recedes into the background as her lips twist into a bemused, albeit begrudging smile. “Really?” she chuckles, shaking her head. “How do you figure that, exactly? 

“Because,” he says, the barest hint of a laugh in his voice (and _god_ that feels good, to feel him relax under her touch, smile against the frayed, buzzing little bundle of nerves they carry between them), “as you were gracious enough to remind me a little while ago, you let… _nothing_ stand in the way of what you want — between you and your happiness. You never have, even when you think you’ve lost it or you’ve been afraid to reach for it. And I — I so _admire_ that about you, because all of that… tenacity, all of that resilience? It reminds me every day that the future’s not written by our past. And you?” he murmurs, hands reaching up to curl around hers, keeping her close to his heart. “Regina, you _are_ my future.”

Tears well up in her eyes, surpassing stinging and surging straight toward brimming on her lashes and her breath _burns_ in her chest, up her throat and on her lips. For a moment there’s nothing for her to _do_ but fight back tears, dig her teeth into her lower lip as she tries, fails to find any words at all to match his. In the end she _still_ manages nothing, wheels in her mind caught around a cog that clicks, grinds over _you are, you are, you are, my future_ , and when she does find the capacity to speak again, it’s a breathless, broken thing, heart carving a chasm up along her throat to bear his name. “ _Robin_ —”

“Regina, _every_ second chance we’ve had has been taken from us, in the end,” he says, his voice slightly strained. A pause, a sharp exhale through the nose and he’s pulling one of her hands up to his mouth, lips grazing a gentle kiss along her palm as his eyes slip shut. Another beat, a squeeze of her hand, and then, “Admittedly, we've mucked up a few of them on our own, but I don’t intend to waste this one,” he murmurs against her skin, breath coming out slower, more measured. “Timing may play a part in our story but it doesn't have any bearing on the one thing I need to know, here.”

“And what's that?”

She feels the curve of his smile against her skin before she sees it, watches it blossom in his irises when he opens his eyes to look at her once more. “That I love you,” he says, simple and plain, “and if my happiness comes from doing good for others, then spending the rest of my life, however long it may be, making you happy seems a good way to achieve that — not to mention,” he adds, a hint of teasing in his voice as he takes half a step into her space, “it would make rather good use of the time that we've got.”

And for just… a moment, Regina is eighteen all over again, rooted to the spot in the middle of a stable (a barn, she’s in a barn and the difference hardly matters now, two decades and a wrinkle in time later) as everything inside of her splinters, cracks and bleeds. She trips, falls, heart over feet and she has never, never been more sure that the damned thing is more safe in his hands than in her own chest.

“Well then,” she says, taking a measured breath in an effort to keep her voice even, “if that’s the case then I suppose we’ll have to add it to the list.” She’s unsurprised at the way he falters, eyebrow arching curiously as he tries to discern her meaning, but it’s all she can do to keep her hand steady as she brings it back down to join the other over his heart. It’s here her gaze lingers, at the place they touch, tender and dear, and even as the words come out of her mouth there is a part of her that cannot believe, even with the thrumming, thumping beat of his heart against her palm, that any of this is real — that her words, here, are _allowed_ to be true. “Things we’d like to do when we get home,” she clarifies, eyes shifting up slowly, carefully to meet his own. “Planning a wedding?”

Lightning flashes, cracks across the sky, sounding almost impossibly dry in the midst of the storm but it is nothing — _nothing_ compared to the way Robin lights up for her, practically _burns_ beneath her touch. Quickly his hands find her waist beneath the cloak once more, fingers flexing, barely brushing in an effort to exhibit some restraint but there’s no mistaking the hope in his eyes. “Is that a yes?”

Regina digs her teeth into her lower lip but it does little to suppress her smile. “What do _you_ think?”

His lips are on hers in an instant, kiss sweet and sound and so unbelievably sure, his hands curling around to settle at the small of her back, fingers digging into her skin. Joy bleeds between their smiles, fuses together until she's nearly dizzy with it, and it's all she can do to slide her hands down to grasp fitfully at his hips for purchase, skin a sticky-damp that has her slipping, catching, holding on tight.

The air shifts, spikes around them, sun sneaking, simmering through sheets of rain even as it sets behind the clouds. There’s a beat that lasts the space of a breath between them when they part, shared and shaking and overwarm, but it’s only when he half-yanks her flush against him that she really takes note of the heat in the air, breaks off with a half-gasp at the feeling of him hard against her belly again. She doesn’t think twice, bites, sucks a kiss against his lower lip and digs her nails into his hips, dragging deliciously along his skin to keep him right where she wants him, tantalizingly close and tempting and — 

A series of shrieks and shouts startles her into a slight frown, has Robin pulling back and leaving her whimpering slightly in protest as he glances over his shoulder in the direction of the noise. It takes her a little longer to really discern much beyond the center of calm they’ve created for themselves — the sticky-scratch of mud and hay between her toes; the warm flush of his body against hers; the gentle brush of velvet against their skin as it plasters itself to their skin and hangs, dangles in the air around them, edges just shy of dragging along the barn floor; the discordant _split-splat_ of rain against the roof, the ground, the leaves on trees.

It’s that — the reminder that it’s still storming just beyond their reach — which really pulls her focus with his to the cacophony of voices drawing near somewhere outside the barn. It’s difficult to make out much beyond the rush of rain, particularly when a low, rolling rumble of thunder shivers its way across the sky. Still, the few phrases she does manage to pick out — _this way, Princess_ and _quickly_ and _can seek shelter in_ — are enough to tell her that the company from the lake has rushed back to the palace in the wake of the sudden storm. Which means their time _here_ may be up, but she’ll be damned if she doesn’t make the most of what they have left by spending it elsewhere.

They do, after all, have something to celebrate.

“So,” she says, a touch breathless as she sweeps her thumbs along his hip bones to bring his attention back to her, “you mentioned a ring, earlier?”

He relaxes a little at that, teeth digging into his bottom lip as he tries (fails, he always fails at this and she relishes in it for the win that it is) to bite back a smile. “Caught that, did you?”

“It’d have been remiss of me not to,” she reasons, “given that I’ll be living with a thief.”

The smile breaks onto his face with ease as he shakes his head, cheeks flushing a light rose in reply. “I do,” he admits (and if _that_ doesn’t make her stomach flip in anticipation, the mere utterance of two words that hold so _much_ promise). “Not with me, mind you. I’ve kept it tucked away in our chambers — and before you ask, _no_ , I won’t tell you where exactly. Can’t give away all of my good hiding places, milady.”

“Well,” she muses, hands curling around to rest, settle at the small of his back just over the curve of his ass, “it seems like now is a pretty good time to bring it out into the open — not to mention,” she flirts, eyes flicking down briefly to where he’s still mostly hard, hot against her belly, “that retreating to our chambers would allow us to… pick up where we left off? Indulge in a little something extra before dinner, maybe share a warm bath?”

Robin _hmm_ s, considering, leans into nudge his nose against hers but the voices are growing louder, nearer, keeping the heat simmering under his skin beneath the surface for just a little while longer. “I’m inclined to agree,” he says, but his gaze shifts toward the open barn doors behind her, eyes searching through sheets blanketing the estate in a near-fog. “But I’m not all that confident we could manage to find our things in the garden again before the others are upon us,” he admits, sounding both apologetic and irritated at the impending intrusion, “much less have enough time to pull any of our clothes back on, particularly given how soaked through they must be by now.”

She laughs at him, she cannot help it, is utterly endeared by the quizzical little quirk of his brow when he turns his gaze upon her again. But Regina just smiles, shakes her head and takes a half-step back to put just enough space between them to reach for him, hands caressing softly along the length of his forearms. “Then consider yourself very lucky,” she says, lacing her fingers with his, “that you’re going to have a witch for a wife.” She waits, just for a beat until lightning flashes across the sky again, echoing in Robin’s eyes as the implication becomes clear, and only then does she allow her own eyes to slip shut.

And with a plume of purple smoke, Regina shifts the eye of their storm back to the safety of stones.


End file.
